Legacy of Hate
by SonofZhon
Summary: Japan's imperial ambitions ended at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but its victims will never forget what they had to endure. Sesshoumaru and Kagome will come face to face with Japan's past, as they battle across the centuries to prevent history from being rewritten and Japan from being erased from existence. Sequel to A Silver Shadow.
1. The Unforgiven

Legacy of Hate

I should mention that this is a sequel to A Silver Shadow and that was written about the time Ryukotsusei died and is based on Naraku dying shortly thereafter. That being so the Tessaiga can perform the windscar and the backlash wave but none of the later techniques. I had actually given up on this sequel but recent events in Asia and reading more fanfiction lately convinced me to finish it.

Special thanks to my beta reader, Impoeia, who managed to review this while handling academic concerns. Sadly will spoil her hard work by replacing apostrophes with equal signs and the like.

A Silver Shadow took place 3 years after Kagome first fell down the well. In this sequel to it, 8 months have passed since Kagome fell in love with the reincarnation of Sesshoumaru in the modern era. The ages are roughly as follows for the other cast members

Kagome Higurashi19, Keeper of the Shikon no Tama, college student

Sesshoumaru Ryusaki, 20, Reincarnation of Sesshoumaru, college student

Rin real age unknown. Suspected to be about 8 when she first encountered Sesshoumaru, now she is roughly 12

Kohaku exact age unknown. Suspected to be about 11 before he was killed in Naraku's trap. Now roughly 15

Sango and Miroku: Offically married after the death of Kikyou at the hands of Sesshoumaru. Both are about 21. Not with a child yet.

Note: Wei Cheng is to be pronounced like Way Chung. Don't ask me about the spelling; the romanization of the Chinese language is nothing I was involved with. Some people out there may choose to argue with me and say that it should be pronounced Chang not Chung but there is ample reason to support my choice. Also, as the author, I make the final call.

Chapter 1: The Unforgiven

_This land'__s end cannot come soon enough_ mused the entity that named itself Wei Cheng as he reclined in a Tokyo café. Wei actually had many names, hundreds of thousands in fact, but he couldn't very well identify himself by those hundreds of thousands; it would be too complicated. So he chose Wei Cheng for the sake of simplicity. But the hatred and rage of all those hundreds of thousands who had born those names had not been forgotten. Even now it seethed in Wei, creating the delicious temptation to kill every Japanese in sight.

To a casual observer, Wei appeared to be nothing more than an average Chinese male. One of countless that visited Japan regularly. Slightly over 6', he had a strong build, square face and short spiky black hair. Dressed in what some might call formal casual, he wore a neatly pressed set of khakis, a black button-up shirt, and a pair of stylish Dockers on his feet. All in all, he looked like a respectable young man. But only from a distance.

Despite his innocuous appearance, the closer one came to Wei, the more they could pick up an air of barely restrained violence. Perhaps it was in the clench of his jaw or in the glint in his dark eyes; whatever it was, people gave him a wide birth and unconsciously tried to get away from him.

_I know its somewhere in this area...just need that...one.. to use it again. _Wei had been searching Japan for nearly six months now, tracking down the disturbance he felt. It was nearly a year ago when he had felt a huge ripple in the flow of time as someone incredibly powerful was brought into the present. He knew immediately what the implications of this were: somehow a distortion, probably magical, existed, which allowed for time travel.

That presented a joyous opportunity for Wei. If he could go back into the past, he might be able to recreate the future and rain down divine vengeance on the Japanese. To leave his homeland though, and seek out this..._hole_ in time, that had been extremely difficult. For decades he had never seriously considered the thought of leaving China. What would be the point? It was the past that he wanted to change and that was considered impossible.

Until now.

In his current form, those from whom he was made from had lovingly crafted his body for the express purpose of delivering their wrath in a purifying blaze. Recalling his creation in the modern world, Wei felt a familiar thread of unease coil about him as a he considered how it was possible for another to know about him. The face of the Westerner who had seemed depressingly normal, and yet, couldn't be. _That blue eyed stranger, the foreigner, how had he known what I was intending? _

There could be no doubt that the outlander was aware of Wei's plans, but far from trying to stop him, the blue-eyed one had actually helped by gifting to Wei the Seal of Heaven, thereby bestowing upon Wei a power that had been reserved for the Gods.

The only thing more disturbing to the freshly created Wei than to realize his plans were already known, was in asking the question of why aid had been given to him at all.

_How did it profit him? Am I being used somehow? _

The outlander had not just known of Wei's plans, but had actually been _waiting_ for him to manifest himself. After giving Wei the seal and assuring him of its power and authenticity, the blue-eyed stranger wished him luck in his goals and simply left.

_No human could have obtained the seal though...What was he..._

To Wei it felt almost as though he were an unwitting actor in some insane play spanning Asia.

_He__s obviously involved somehow, but it seems that his goals while unknown, are at least not in conflict with my own. I suppose I can accept being an actor in a play if my character is responsible for the annihilation of Japan._

That small amount of consolation would have to be enough for the present, as Wei could do little more on _that_ subject. Wei closed his eyes for a moment in contemplation.

While the gift of the Seal of Heaven had been great, it still left Wei with the need to forge a weapon of his own. Despite the fantastic power the Seal of Heaven granted, it had one enormous drawback: it could only be used in the past. The crafting of his own weapon had been tiring but not overly difficult. As the summation of power and knowledge of so many, he had been provided with the means to create his primary weapon. He hadn't tested either of them out yet, but he knew they would not fail him.

Idly, Wei wondered whose power it was that had created a ripple in the ether large enough for him to detect even in Nanking. _Whoever it is I must remember to thank them. _

_Right before I kill them. _

Wei motioned a nervous waitress over and ordered another drink. All he could do now was wait for a ripple to occur so he could find the means to his goal.


	2. Ignorance is bliss

Chapter 2 Ignorance is Bliss

"So you want to be called Sesshoumaru again?"

Sesshoumaru nodded an affirmative and looked around before replying. Sitting in their favorite café, sipping tea, Kagome and the reincarnated Sesshoumaru looked like almost any average young couple. One a gentle feminine beauty with creamy skin and warm almond eyes, the other was a picture of silver masculine grace intertwined with an unspoken strength that smoldered in his molten gaze. It had been roughly a year ago that Sess Ryusaki, the reincarnation of Sesshoumaru, had entered into Kagome's life to fill the void in her heart left by Inuyasha and his nihilistic devotion to Kikyou. That single moment in time, when Inuyasha chose to die not for love but for a mockery of life, was etched with frightening clarity into Kagome's mind. It had been in that black moment, that her sense of self-worth had been shattered completely in seeing her first love choose to die rather than be with her.

But the fates had taken mercy on Kagome and sent to her a reborn Sesshoumaru. Through his reincarnation, Sesshoumaru had defied time and death to find her. His love and dedication to Kagome had been the balm that healed her broken heart; even after traveling to the past with her and discovering once more all that he was, Sesshoumaru remained true to her.

In the months since reawakening to his true nature and power, Sesshoumaru had chosen to keep a low profile and masqueraded through life in a human form, not revealing his true identity except to a handful of people. Gone were the canine fangs, the blue crescent moon and the magenta stripes on his cheeks and wrists along with the elongated ears, all of which would have at least hinted at his inhuman origin.

If truth to be told, the differences between his human form and youkai form were minimal. But to Kagome those differences were not to be overlooked lightly. When Sesshoumaru took off his human mask and revealed his true features, Kagome could not help but find them alluring. His markings made him look wild and dangerous, an impression only accentuated by his natural fangs. His pointed ears in particular were appealing to Kagome since she knew them to be extremely sensitive. Whenever she rubbed the ridges along his ears, a deep and contented rumble would emerge from his chest and resonate in time with her motions.

_ Unfortunately, to this day, his family still doesn't have a clue about who he really is and they may never, _Kagome thought as she listened.

"Not in front of my father though." Sesshoumaru continued. "That might cause difficulties. I'm not keen on having awkward questions at the dinner table. Great as I am, some things are beyond even my capacity to explain; such as coming back from the dead, time travel, and women."

"Listen" Kagome said airily "Everyone knows you just need to treat a woman like they are the center of the universe. It's simplicity itself."

Sesshoumaru rolled his eyes "Yes, this extremely reasonable and in no way burdensome advice absolutely does not lead to unrealistic expectations and thus discontent."

Kagome smiled lazily. "Well a woman has to set some expectations after all. Luckily, you meet the ones that matter."

"Well naturally," Sesshoumaru replied his eyes practically glowing with mirth. "Not everyone has a Lord as their boyfriend. You must feel so honored."

"I thank heaven every day," Kagome said. "Do you happen to know where I can purchase some modesty? It seems as though you're running low."

"I can assure you that I am not running low." Sesshoumaru deadpanned. "I have as much as is appropriate."

Sesshoumaru placed some yen on the table while grabbing their packages. "This conversation isn't really going to lead to anything serious I can tell. We should get going anyway. Rin has been looking forward to coming here for quite a while now and she is probably going to explode at any moment."

Kagome couldn't disagree on that point. "Let's hope that she is ready this time. I'd rather not have any fatalities occur. Last time was much too close."

Sesshoumaru nodded in agreement as they approached his Mazda Millennium. His silver hair matched almost perfectly with the car's sheen as it glimmered in the light. "I think she and Shippou will be adequately prepared for the everyday threats we barely even register as threats anymore. We've given them a lot of instruction about electrical outlets, cars, and kitchen appliances and almost everything else over the past couple of months. With the help of Souta, we can probably keep them out of trouble."


	3. Unsettling Goals

Standing alone atop the Tokyo Tower, Wei was in a contemplative mood. In the distance stood the sacred Mount Fuji, rising up proudly from the earth and ascending toward heaven and the Gods. Wei could easily understand how the Japanese could revere the mountain, treating it almost as a deity. In his own homeland, there were many stories of sacred dragons being associated with mountains and thus conferring upon a mountain holiness.

For that reason, it actually saddened him to see how the Japanese had cheapened Mount Fuji by using it as a tourist trap, allowing foreigners and the Godless to swarm across its immaculate heights.

_Failing to give proper veneration to the sacred, tsk, tsk, shameful. _Wei sneered silently_. But don't worry; I'll help you to atone for your sins. All of them. _

Shifting his gaze, Wei's dark eyes examined a Zojoji temple that stood almost directly below him. Parts of him recognized its architectural style as belonging to the Chinese Tang Dynasty and a feeling of fresh rage swept over him again.

The Japanese had received so much of their culture from China and then, like some ungrateful child turning on its parent, they had invaded and raped his country brutally. Their fucking Emperor Hirohito had launched over a million troops into China over the course of a decade and a half and they only left when the Americans had introduced them to the atomic age.

But it was far too late for China.

By the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been reduced to their constituent atoms, his country had been forced to endure agonizing humiliations under the jackboots of the Japanese Imperial Armies. The Japanese had murdered over 10 million of Chinese and performed horrific atrocities on countless others. Memories of torture and human experimentation leapt to the front of his mind, causing him to unconsciously grind his teeth together and clench the railing in his hands, bending it like a wire.

_It is not just enough to kill them, they have to suffer as we did. By the time I'm done with them, even Hell will seem like paradise. _

_All I need is one more mystic ripple to locate the source and begin my own journey through time. _

Wei wasn't actually certain exactly how far back in time he would go, but he had been able to tell it was several centuries and that would be more than enough to alter the future.

Trying to calm his furious mind, Wei recalled the ancient legends of his land and debated with himself just how many of the fantastic creatures and their powers were real. He knew that the dragons had abandoned this realm of reality hundreds of years ago and so existed only in the past, but he was unsure just how numerous they were. _Or if they will be sufficient to wipe out Japan. My own power might devastate feudal Japan but I have no idea what walked the earth then...eventually something would manage to stop me if I acted alone. _

Wei was not pleased by that particular possibility. He was unclear on what to do in the face of such uncertainty. _The Dragons of China are certainly powerful but against all of Japan? Would they be sufficient?_

If truth be told, Wei was more concerned with whether or not he could successfully summon the dragons than anything else. After all, the Seal of Heaven was carried by Gods and used by them. While he had a great reservoir of spiritual energy to draw on, comparable to an ocean in fact, he was not a God.

A dark thread of unease wove through Wei as he considered his unlikely patron and the warnings imparted by him.

_The foreigner assured me that I had sufficient spiritual energy to summon them but stressed that it would take time, it would be taxing, and I would be well advised to be set up a defense to prevent any interruptions._

Wei returned his gaze once more to Mount Fuji. _At this point it doesn't matter anymore, I refuse to turn back._


	4. Future Tense

Sesshoumaru grabbed the age-worn wooden handle to the well house and paused before opening it for his raven-haired girlfriend.

"Kagome, do you ever stop to think how wondrous life can be? Here we are at your family shrine, approaching an ancient well that can transport us across time. Not only that but in a way both of us have already died and come back to life. I feel certain that we could start a religion around ourselves claiming to be miraculous. You could pass yourself off as an angel of purity, me...well...obviously not Taiyoukai...that would be too alarming...what to say though..."

Sesshoumaru half-turned to Kagome, ready to torture her with more inane discussions, as she had done so many times to him, but suddenly clenched his jaw shut. Her hands had managed to slip underneath his shirt and were tracing designs on his stomach. Each teasing stroke of her fingertips left a line of fire blossoming on his skin. Slowly, expertly, he felt her fingers glide lower and lower, inflaming him with anticipation.

Suddenly it stopped as her hands withdrew. Sesshoumaru looked at Kagome as though he had been cheated out of a prize.

_Which in a sense I have been _Sesshoumaru thought to himself.

Kagome put her hand on his, which still had a grasp on the door, and pulled, opening it before them. "Now come on, Rin's waiting."

Sesshoumaru stared at the back of Kagome's head as she descended into the well house as though nothing had happened. How was she able to do that to him? "Kagome, has anyone ever told you, 'don't start the engine unless you're going to drive the car.' It is sound advice."

Kagome looked back at Sesshoumaru as he descended the steps and grinned smugly. "Have you joined the boy scouts? It seems like you're pitching a tent."

Sesshoumaru took Kagome into his arms and sat down on the lip of the well with Kagome sitting on his lap. "Pitching a tent you say? How can you tell?"

Sesshoumaru felt a shiver run through Kagome as he rubbed himself against her and gently nibbled her ear, but refused to go any further. Two could play that game.

"Off we go."

Sesshoumaru leaned back and let gravity do its work, pulling them downward with its grasp. Normally, she would have seen the darkness of the well shattered as blue-purple galaxies of light exploded around both her and Sesshoumaru as they fell through time. But the next few moments held nothing but terror for her.

_She stared into dark burning eyes. Eyes so filled with unquenchable hate and the promise of searing agony that they couldn't be human._

_"I would love to spend the time raping you endlessly and savoring the taste of your tears on my tongue, but you strike me as one of those who would prove to surprisingly dangerous to let live any longer than is necessary."_

_Kagome felt claws of agony rend her stomach as his blade bit into her abdomen and burst out of her back. He withdrew the blade, relishing the sounds she made as he twisted it._

_"Die slowly."_

Darkness filled Kagome"s vision and she felt strong arms around her holding her gently. A drum was beating furiously nearby trying to draw her back to reality. In the distance, someone was calling her name, but Kagome only barely perceived it; everything was in a smothering fog and she felt like she was blindly groping through it.

Sesshoumaru"s heart was pounding like a jackhammer and he could feel his blood burning in his veins, trying desperately to locate whatever threat was present and tear it to pieces. "KAGOME!KAGOME!"

Sesshoumaru was terrified and enraged by whatever was affecting Kagome. One moment, she was snuggled in his arms leaving the future, the next they were in the past and she was unresponsive with eyes rolling up into her head and shaking uncontrollably in his arms. Her mouth opened, and for a moment he thought everything was going to be fine, but then a tortured scream pierced the air, sending his heart into overdrive. Then an eerie stillness swept over her and she went limp in his arms.

Leaping up from the ancient well, he raced through the forest around them, and headed toward Kaede's village in a blur of silver.

A moment later, the towering Youkai Lord stood in Kaede's doorway with Kagome clutched protectively in his arms. Walking over to the bed, he gently placed her down and then turned to the older miko with eyes that burned like twin stars. "Help her."

Kaede looked at Kagome for a moment in puzzlement. No outward markings gave sign of her injury, yet clearly something was wrong with her. "Lord Sesshoumaru, go draw some water while I examine her."

Kaede took a calming breath and moved closer to Kagome. Relaxing her mind, she let her perceptions of the physical world fall away and allowing her to see the essence of Kagome's life force. The pinkish aura that surrounded the girl was stable throughout except for a light blue whirlpool centered above her brow. The slowly swirling funnel of the vortex was twisting deeply into the brow, penetrating the mind's eye with its tail. Kaede silently berated herself as realization struck her. _ I should have known from the start. _Kaede shifted her perceptions back to the physical world as she felt an immensely powerful presence waiting behind her.


	5. Dark Tidings

Chapter 5 Dark Tidings

"Lord Sesshoumaru, I believe I know what ails Kagome, but it would help if I heard what happened before you arrived," Kaede said, as reached under the bed and drew out a chest with washcloths in it, while waiting to hear Sesshoumaru's version of events.

Sesshoumaru hesitated before his silver mane swept from side to side as he shook his head in confusion. "I wish I knew what _did _happen. She was fine on our side of the well. But when we emerged on this side, her eyes had rolled up into her head and she was trembling. Then she screamed as if in pain, but there were no wounds on her."

Kaede was silent for a moment before wetting a cloth in the water Sesshoumaru had supplied and placing it on the young girl's pale brow. "Kagome has been training hard for some time now to better master her abilities. She was powerful before even untrained, now that she has the Shikon no Tama in her once more and has been training earnestly, her powers have become phenomenal. It has happened before that Kikyou and other priestesses have glimpsed the future. Sometimes the visions they received were strong enough to overwhelm them and cause them to pass out. My guess is that Kagome was struck by such a powerful premonition that she was rendered unconscious."

Sesshoumaru felt his like a weight had been lifted from his heart upon hearing that she was not being cursed or something worse. His relief while was dimmed however as something occurred to him. "When she screamed, it was like she was being torn in half. Whatever she saw was more than just a vision, it was a nightmare."

Sesshoumaru looked longingly at Kagome. He had thought that he could devote all his time to loving her in peaceful tranquility. That the world would leave them to the paradise they found in each other's arms. That future, that dream, that hope, was as clear to him as crystal. And just like all hopes and dreams it shattered just as easily under the remorseless hammer of reality. The truth of tomorrow was obvious; it would be a world of pain.

_No matter how painful it is, I will shield Kagome from it. _ Sesshoumaru vowed to himself.

Sesshoumaru turned to Kaede, "All we can do then is wait?"

Kaede nodded sagely, "Precisely."

Two hours later found Sesshoumaru was still patiently waiting for Kagome to wake up. In order to prevent crowding and unnecessary disturbances within the small confines of the hut, he had ordered Jaken to place Ah-Un strategically in front of the door to Kaede's home, keeping out Miroku, Sango and all the others whose annoying questions and hysterics would be anything but useful.

Unfortunately that meant he had to be outside to take questions to which no satisfactory answer could be provided, which in turn only encouraged more unanswerable questions from Sango and Miroku all of which were variations on the same question: _What happened to Kagome?_

For the first quarter of an hour he was willing to indulge the questions-or, more accurately, one question that was asked with an astonishing number of variations. However, his patience eventually ran out and he cracked his whip between the monk and the demon exterminator and growled at them with sufficient menace that they knew not to press it further.

_When I was Lord of the Western Lands I didn't have to put up with this, _Sesshoumaru thought irritably.

_Humans are so illogical_ Sesshoumaru thought to himself. He briefly considered amending that last thought for his own circumstances, but decided to keep it as it was.

_Well, at least Jaken got the children off my back, _he continued with a slightly improved attitude._ I really should have treated him better when I was alive_.

The resulting atmosphere of calm and silence was invaluable to the Taiyoukai's nerves.

"Sesshoumaru," Kagome whispered as she tried to raise herself on her elbows. There was the sound of a large body moving outside and then in a moment later, he was beside her, supporting her and holding on to her as though she would be ripped away at any second.

Kaede maintained her distance but asked what needed to be asked. "What did you see Kagome? You had a vision of the future, try to remember what you saw."

Kagome looked up with an expression of terrifying emptiness. "I saw my own death."


	6. Deny the Future

Chapter 6 Deny the Future

Kagome looked into Sesshoumaru's golden eyes, and saw a silent plea to say she had meant something else. "Denying it won't change it."

The look in Sessoumaru's eyes hardened into steel. "If I can't deny it then I will prevent it. What did you see in your vision?"

"I'm not entirely sure myself." Kagome said softly "I was in a dark place...there were these eyes...filled with hate...and a pain like being run through..."

Kaede cleared her throat from the corner. "Excuse me, but I think the others might want to hear this."

Kagome looked to the front of the dwelling, already wondering why they weren't here beside her, but then she saw the rows of scales on Ah-Un's backside and realized to the implications. Infuriated, she turned to Sesshoumaru. "How long have you been keeping Ah-Un there blocking the entrance? Are my friends forbidden from seeing me?"

Kagome stopped herself before adding, _Are you planning to mark the wall with your piss and declare this territory off limits?_

Before Sesshoumaru could answer, Kaede spoke up. "As interesting as watching you two quarrel is, I believe it can wait ."

Sesshoumaru turned his golden eyes to the older miko with an unreadable expression in them. "You are correct. However there is something to be discussed first."

Sesshoumaru turned his back on Kaede and faced Kagome once more. "You must realize that you cannot simply announce to everyone that you have had a vision of your death. Shippou and Rin would be devastated. When discussing this with the others, I believe that only Miroku and Sango need to be informed for now. I can inform Jaken privately later. We will, however, need something to explain this turn of events to Shippu and Rin. Something that would not induce panic."

Kagome regarded him for a moment before nodding in agreement. "We could just tell them I had a vision of the future, but not specify what was in it."

"So you will say what exactly?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Kagome thought for a moment before answering, "I will say that I had a vision in which I saw eyes full of hate and darkness surrounding them. It is not a lie, just not the entire truth. Later, when we are alone with Miroku and Sango, I can give a fuller description."

"In full detail. I need to know everything that you saw," Sesshoumaru said softly, while taking Kagome's hand and helping her off the bed. "Ah-Un, you may move now."

The small mountain of triangular golden scales zipped out of sight and the two lovers exited into the late morning sunshine. Despite having seen her death, Kagome was not filled with the mind-numbing fear one would expect. She felt strangely calm as Sesshoumaru led her to the shade of a nearby matsu tree.

Looking up into its evergreen branches, Kagome reflected on just how short life was; everything might as well have been in the blink of the eye. She had been granted a rare gift in seeing her own death; an understanding of just how little time every life has and the importance of making the most out of every moment of that short span of time. _It is that very shortness that gives life its meaning, urging us to do as much as we can in the time that we have. _

Fortune had smiled on Kagome when the reincarnation of Sesshoumaru, appeared in her life. In his reincarnated form, Sesshoumaru had defied time and death to seek her out and offer himself over to her completely with his whole heart. She knew that Inuyasha had loved her and still did even if it was in a realm beyond life, but his self-sacrifice in a vow to the dead had ripped a yawning void inside Kagome that had threatened to swallow her soul. It was Sesshoumaru, whose invisible silver connection to her compelled him unknowingly to trace that ethereal line to her and slowly mend her broken spirit.

His love was like a gentle river winding through her heart, washing away her sorrow, pain, and darkest fears. It had filled her completely making her feel whole once more and suffusing her with contentment. Just being in his warm arms, feeling his strength and protection, made her feel like heaven had nothing more to offer.

_Wonder what he is thinking? _Tilting her head back to look at his face, Kagome could see that he had put on the trademark expression of hostile neutrality that had characterized his first incarnation.

That was the last thing she wanted to see at a time like this; she wanted to remember his gorgeous smiles, his bass laughter, the joy of his glowing golden eyes. The urge to have all of those burned into her memory in crystal clear detail resounded in her heart. _That icy mask has got to go. _ _I want to enjoy every moment I can with him and not have that time tarnished by a retreat from his emotions to glacial indifference._ _I won't let him waste his life and mine by returning to hide behind that emotionless mask. _

Running one of her hands along his sensitive ears, she lingered in the area behind his earlobe, massaging it gently. She was gratified when she saw his icy expression melt away to one of satisfaction and then a purr started to emerge from him. Laughing slightly she caught his eyes with her own.

Kagome felt like licking his lips when she saw a deliciously sly smile turn his lips upward at the corners.

Sesshoumaru, while remaining standing, leaned his back against the matsu with Kagome's head resting against his chest. He delicately ran one hand through her ebony hair, loving its softness and resisting the urge to bury his face in those midnight tresses, as both their respective traveling companions began to converge on them.

Sesshoumaru brought his lips to her ear and whispered while eyeing Rin and Shippou who were running up to them expectantly. "This is for the best. It has to be this way."

Kagome sighed as his ministrations continued. "Yes, I know."

"Know what?" Shippou asked as he suddenly appeared and snuggled into Kagome's embrace. Rin meanwhile leaned against Sesshoumaru's, as his arm came around her. It was while she was leaning against him, that an unexpected drama unfolded before Sesshoumaru's eyes. Kohaku's lithe form walked up to them looking at Rin and clearly wishing to sit by her but obviously uncomfortable in front of Sesshoumaru and his piercing gaze. Kohaku fidgeted for a moment, not meeting the youkai's eyes and then made up his mind and sat down on the other side of Rin, trying not to draw any more attention to himself. A possessive and protective instinct welled up in Sesshoumaru as he considered what this meant for Rin, but a moment later it was drowned out by a feelings of amusement and pleasure.

_Love is in the air it seems; maybe I should've seen this one coming. Rin and Kohaku would make a natural couple as they've had such similar experiences in their lives. A boyfriend for Rin...it is both reassuring and unnerving._ Sesshoumaru briefly smiled at his reactions, but then chided himself mentally for letting his attention wander from the more pressing matter at hand. Sango, Miroku, Jaken, and Kaede were politely waiting for answers while Kirara perched herself atop one of Ah-Un's heads and both turned toward Sesshoumaru and Kagome with expectant eyes.

Shippou, not unexpectedly, was the one to break the silence with a total lack of tact. "Kagome, tell us already! Kaede just told us you had a premonition. Whatever that is."

Kagome sighed as she felt Sesshouamru tensed again behind her. Taking everyone in with her eyes, she thought to herself,_ Strange how honesty is considered a universal virtue and yet in so many cases, the entire truth is too terrible to reveal..._

"A premonition is a vision of the future Shippou," Kagome motioned with her hands toward the group. "What I saw was not good and probably means something bad is coming." Like an ill omen, a breeze ran through the group almost like a physical manifestation of the dark foreboding sweeping through their hearts.


	7. While We Live

Chapter 7 While we live

"When I was in that dream state I saw eyes burning with hatred and surrounded by darkness." Kagome said "I don't know who it was or where they are but they were not up to anything good."

"Is that anything more you can tell us Kagome?" Sango asked with evident concern in her voice.

"Sorry, Sango," Kagome apologized with another half-truth "I may be able to say more later, but not right now."

"That is alright Lady Kagome, we understand" Miroku soothed, understanding that Kagome might not be able to recall more right now, but also thinking that something else was not being said. Something important. He had been quite a con artist for many years before giving it up and he sensed that something was amiss.

"Well, at least we know ahead of time!" Shippou said enthusiastically. "So we just have to be on the lookout for something bad."

"That may help," Sesshoumaru agreed, although he was privately wondering about the accuracy of these types of visions and if they could be escaped. "No matter what though, whoever it is will have to deal with me first."

"Us," Kagome said while nodding her head toward Sango, Miroku and the others. "Whoever it is will have to deal with ALL of us."

"Right..." Sesshoumaru said while resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Valor they might have, but sheer power was lacking. Fishing around in his pockets, Sesshoumaru eventually felt the hard square of plastic.

_It is obsolete but not here..._

"Anyway, Rin I brought a new game for you to play on the Gameboy Advance-" Sesshoumaru temporarily paused as Rin and Shippou cheered and reached for the game. "It's called Final Fantasy Tactics. It is more like an interactive book than the other games you have been playing. You take on the role of various heroes and use their skills to win battles. The game explains it all."

Sesshoumaru held the game just out of Rin's reach for a moment. "You can go and play in my quarters but remember to share with Shippou and Kohaku."

Sesshoumaru handed the game to Rin who immediately ran off with it and the Gameboy Advanced with Shippou chasing after her. Kohaku hesitated for a moment and then ran to catch up with their swiftly retreating forms.

Turning her head from the retreating figures, Kagome noticed the way Miroku was looking at her. It was a look that any poker player would recognize as a measuring look. One that said, _What are you hiding? _

_Damn _Kagome thought, _that was a little too quick. _

The significance of Miroku's facial expression had apparently not been lost on Sesshoumaru either. When the retreating forms of Shippou and Rin had receded far enough into the distance he looked meaningfully at Kagome. "Now that they are gone, we can talk more openly. Kagome saw more in her vision but for the sake of Rin and Shippou we chose not to reveal all immediately."

"Kagome," Sango said in a strange tone "What did you see exactly?"

_Here it goes,_ Kagome thought to herself. "I saw myself die."

There was an old rhyme about sticks and stones being able to break bones but words being harmless.

Bullshit.

The truth of the matter was that words do hurt, people have killed and died for them. Armies have been launched by them, countries annihilated by them, marriages torn apart by them, friendships destroyed by them, the state of reality altered by them.

Those five simple words Kagome spoke were like hammers of reality, smashing a peaceful dreamlike world and shattering the hope-filled lives of everyone present into black shards of sorrow.

"Go on," Sesshoumaru said in a gentle voice as Miroku, Sango, and Kaede stepped closer to form a loose ring around her. "We need to have a full account of the vision before we go further. Please tell us as much as you are able about what you saw."

Kagome felt her cheeks pale some as everyone's expectant gaze focused on her and the horrible memory of what she had seen played itself again within her mind. "I can't give a full explanation, it is not like it was crystal clear. I was trapped or restrained somehow, I think. What I remember most vividly were his eyes. They were full of hatred, rage, and the unimaginable malice. Whoever _he_ is, he said he would like to do nothing more than rape me and drink my tears, but that he said I might cause him trouble. In the next moment, I felt a sword go through my stomach and he said, "Die slowly." The next thing I saw was you as I awoke."

The group was silent for a moment as its members digested the unwanted, but necessary information. The next question felt like poison in Sesshoumaru's mouth, but he had to know the answer.

"Kaede," Sesshoumaru began in an empty voice. "How often do these premonitions accurately show the future?"

The sorrowful and disheartening look Kaede gave Kagome made the answer unnecessary, but she proceeded anyway, "It is not unheard of for some of these visions to be more symbolic than literal and thus could be interpreted in more than one way. However, her vision seemed very straightforward and in the case of someone with Kagome's skills it is almost unheard of for the future not to occur just as predicted."

Sesshoumaru sorely wanted to say that this would be one of those exceptional cases, but refused to let wishful thinking guide his actions. "The past or the present, either could be where her vision took place. If it can be avoided then how should we act?"

Kagome had been asking herself that exact same question repeatedly for a while now and answered with a surprising amount of steel in her normally cheerful voice. "We just have to continue on as close to normal as possible. As you pointed out, staying on this side of the well won't necessarily make me any safer. Same thing goes for the other side. Trying to second-guess the future is pointless; we'd just be running around in circles. No matter what actions we take we can't know what the result might be. And I for one refuse to lock myself in some mountain cave in a futile attempt to hide from the future."

The bizarre looks she was getting from everyone made her suddenly feel a little nervous and she added, "I've been thinking about that a lot since I woke up, as one could expect. I know you think I should be afraid and all, and I won't deny that I am, but if my end is approaching I want to, trite though is sounds, enjoy whatever is left to me. I can't do that if I let fear control me."

Sesshoumaru opened his mouth to object but Kagome signaled him to wait.

Kagome paused for a moment. "Really, trying to outwit fate by changing what we are going to do is like trying to outrun your shadow. Pointless."

Sesshoumaru hated her logic with a passion, but couldn't disagree. She was right, a life spent in the dark hidden from the world was not worth living. How could it be? But that didn't mean he wasn't going to act as though nothing were wrong. He was going to be prepared and keep his guard up. "Fine, we'll do it your way. Maybe knowing what we know will be enough. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you engage in needless risk."

Miroku, who had been unusually quiet finally spoke up, "I can see why you would not want Rin, Shippou and Kohaku to hear this. Sending them away was the best choice."

Sesshoumaru turned to Miroku with serious eyes. "I sent them away because by not knowing what the most likely outcome was they would retain hope."


	8. On Target

Chapter 8 On Target

Wei stood in front of the Higurashi shrine, trying to make sense of what he knew. Another ripple in time had occurred and radiated out from this location, but the entire area was heavily permeated with magic, distorting his senses.

_So close and yet so far..._

Pinpointing the rip in time would be nearly impossible without some sort of clue, which meant that Wei was going to have to deal with the shrine's keepers. Torturing the information out of them was not an option, he had no wish to needlessly complicate a situation whose exact nature was delicate and needed a subtle approach. Especially considering that he couldn't be sure what the full consequences of such an act would be. Turning his head from side to side to observe his full surroundings, he saw that no one was near. Concealing himself behind a wall, Wei cleared his mind and concentrated.

Around the Dockers on Wei's feet, blood began to seep out to form a small pond with him at its center. A sudden gust of wind washed over Wei, causing his black spiked hair to sway like a tide of darkness.

Out of the liquid gore a head emerged slowly followed by a set of broad shoulders. The blood made soft sucking sounds as a muscular chest flanked by strong arms rose out of its shallow depths. A few moments later, the legs and feet were came into view.

Two Weis stared at each other for a moment. One naked and covered in blood, the other clothed and clean. The clothed Wei brought around his backpack and opened it to pull out another set of clothes as the pool of blood beneath his heels receded back into him. The naked Wei closed his eyes momentarily, willing the blood he was soaked in to be absorbed into his body. In the next moment of an eerie reality, his skin silently swallowed the blood.

No words were exchanged between the two Weis, as one handed the other a set of clothes. No words were needed between the two Weis, as both were the same entity and both knew how to proceed. After having clothed himself appropriately, the second Wei stepped out from behind the wall and started up the steps trying to act in the most non-threatening and respectful manner that he could. In his powered down version, he hoped that his true desires and intentions would be easier to conceal. The reactions of the café customers and employees were difficult not to notice.

_I don't need the shrine keeper intimidated and reticent; that would be less than helpful. _

Bypassing the house where the shrine caretakers undoubtedly lived, Wei headed straight for the adjacent and totally unimpressive gift shop. Stopping in front of the entrance, Wei examined the various protective scrolls placed on the door. They were obviously meant to ward off evil but they were pitifully inadequate to the task. The power they radiated was just barely noticeable. Repressing a smirk of contempt, Wei opened the door and stepped foot inside. The first thing he noticed was the smell. It was the musty smell of long dead animals and scrolls. Underneath and warring with that odor was the smell of cheap collectibles and other nicknacks. _Do these people honestly turn a profit from this poor excuse for a tourist trap?_

Wei had only a moment to ponder that before an old man appeared from a room behind the counter. "Good day and welcome to the Sunset shrine. Is there anything I can help you with?"

Wei miraculously maintained his composure and smiled in what he hoped was a friendly manner. "Ah yes, I would like to know as much as possible about this shrine and also perhaps get a tour of it."

The old man, Wei assumed he was the senior member of the Higurashi clan, smiled joyously as though such a thing were unprecedented and could deliver him into ecstasy. Reaching underneath the counter, the elder Higurashi pulled out a book and began a sales spiel. "This book, which is very reasonably priced, contains detailed information on all the legends associated with this shrine and comes with numerous illustrations..."

Wei listened for a few more moments before his impatience began to surface. Reaching into one of his pockets, he pulled out a wad of cash that had been meant for something worthwhile but right now Wei just wanted to end the damned sales pitch. "Yes, you make a compelling case. I'll take that book and the other one on legendary youkai. How soon could I expect to get a tour?"

The elderly man seemed somewhat annoyed that he hadn't gotten to finish his presentation but the purchase of the books more than compensated for it. As he rang it up on the cash register and completed the transaction, he answered. "I'm afraid my granddaughter, who usually helps run the shrine, is not here right now to take over the counter. Let me fetch my grandson to watch the shop and then I'll give you a tour."

Wei picked up the books and opened the first one to the table of contents, perusing it to see if anything immediately jumped out to him at his as being noteworthy while the old man sought his grandson.


	9. Territorial Instincts

Chapter 9 Territorial Instincts

"Jaken," the small youkai by Sesshoumaru's feet stood up straighter as his lord addressed him. "In my haste earlier I left several packages in the depths of the Bone Eater's Well that I wish you to collect for me now. Ask Kohaku to join you and make clear that I wish him to do just that. Kagome and I had intended to throw a party and those packages were key to it. Although a party seems out of place at a time like this, I do wish to make Kagome happy and so the festivities will go ahead as planned. I know I can rely on you in this matter. Feel free to take Ah-Un with you."

Sesshoumaru turned abruptly not bothering to acknowledge his servant's assurances that he would take care of it immediately. He knew Jaken was a faithful and dependable servant but his constant ass kissing could be grating on a person's nerves. Sesshoumaru was actually tempted to retrieve the items himself, since it would be much faster, but he refused to leave Kagome's vicinity. Even now she was only a few meters away with Sango and Miroku arguing over Kouga. Seems the damn fool had been looking for her, but refused to believe that she was from another world or that she was taken by a reincarnated Sesshoumaru.

"He actually has a wife now but nonetheless he wants to find you for whatever reason. When we told him that you were involved with Sesshoumaru, he looked like his eyes were to going explode. He refused to accept that you were with a reincarnated Taiyoukai or that you weren't from this world." Sango stopped talking and let Kagome have a moment to think about it.

Sesshoumaru felt his spine stiffen and his eyes bleed red at Kagome's next words. "I hope he doesn't think that I am willing to become a sort of concubine for him."

Kagome, Sango, and Miroku all felt a growl resonate in their bones as Sesshoumaru entered into the conversation. "If he does believe that to be the case, then I am going to turn him into a eunuch."

Miroku squeezed his legs shut, silently vowing to stay clear of Kagome while said person tried to calm her lover. "I'm sure he can be reasoned with, besides we probably won't be seeing him anytime soon. He does have a pack to run after all. And since he lost his jewel shards to Naraku, he probably has to devote more time and effort to his pack now then while he was in possession of them."

Red eyes glittered in the light of the setting sun as Sesshoumaru smiled dangerously. "If he wants to continue leading his pack then he would do well to learn what is within his territory and what is not."

Kagome was chafing inwardly at his protectiveness, but knew it was futile arguing. Just like with Inuyasha, the very thought of Kouga being around was enough put his half-brother on edge._ Once again I'll probably have to protect Kouga from an early death. I wonder if appealing to his ego will work on him like it did with Inuyasha._

Kagome got up from her place beside Sango and Miroku and walked over to Sesshoumaru with a suggestive smile. "You don't need to be agitated Sesshoumaru," Kagome said as she lightly traced the crescent moon on his forehead. "It's not like he could compare with you."

Looking into his eyes, Kagome saw their normal color return before he leaned in with his lips next to her ear. "Being raised in a court I've learned how to tell when someone is appealing to my ego." Sesshoumaru gently nibbled the outer rim of her ear. "But don't stop just because of that."

Kagome wanted to be angry with him for seeing through her ruse, but the exaggerated tenderness of his lips and agonizing slowness of their attentions were driving her to a familiar heat. "You are so bad."

Kagome felt his lips twitch in a smile.

"I know."

Pulling back Sesshoumaru took her hands in his own. "I suppose we should put what we bought to good use and set up for the party."

Kagome perked up instantly. "That's right, I had almost forgotten our about what we had planned."

"I could tell, but you were pretty engrossed in other things so it isn't all that surprising. I've had Jaken take Ah-Un and Kohaku to the well to get everything. I can hear Jaken now advising Kohaku to treat Rin with the utmost respect if he wants to impress me."

Kagome frowned slightly. "You know, you really should lighten up as far as that is concerned. It is not like Kohaku is some corrupting influence, you know."

"Kagome, you know I only want to protect Rin. I am doing my best to treat this situation in the most reasonable manner. That doesn't make it easy though. But enough about that; let's focus on enjoying ourselves tonight."


	10. Closing In

Chapter 10 Closing In

Wei's patience was being tested to their utmost limits as he toured the shrine with the elder Higurashi who was droning on ceaselessly about his young granddaughter. Apparently she had become enamored with a man she met more than half a year ago and the elder Higurashi disapproved of the match. In fact, he could not help but express his disapproval to complete strangers such as Wei who would just as soon kill them all.

"-ah youth today. If only it would listen to wisdom from its elders. You know when I was that age..."

Wei grasped his hands tightly behind his back to prevent them from crushing the old man's windpipe. "Excuse me, while your granddaughter should undoubtedly listen to your sage advice, I was wondering if you would indulge me in discussing this shrine's history and the legends associated with it."

The old man tensed in annoyance but Wei really didn't care, he was close to snapping. "Yes, I didn't mean to prattle on so.. Well I suppose the most important legend of this shrine is that of the Shikon no Tama. It was said to possess incredible power, enough to change the world to suit a youkai's wish if it was used that way." That instantly caught Wei's attention as a possible reason for all the magical energy in the area.

"According to lore, the jewel was sought after by many, but none were able to claim it as its guardian, a powerful priestess named Kikyou slew almost all that tried to steal it. The tale is a tragedy however, as the priestess fell in love with a hanyou named Inuyasha..."

Wei listened as the tale spun out in a series of convoluted adventures, love triangles, and disasters. Apparently a strange reincarnation of Kikyou, a priestess from another world was born with the Shikon no Tama inside her and had traveled between the worlds using its powers or that of its fragments.

When Wei heard "worlds" though, he suspected it was actually "times." _That would explain much of the ambiguity of the legend in relation to this 'strange priestess' and her origin; not to mention what I have been sensing for a while now. If so then someone from this shrine is my key to traveling through time and to match the story it would have to be a woman... _

Puzzles pieces suddenly fell into place within Wei's mind. _The ripple I felt earlier today...The absent granddaughter...her boyfriend that she met nearly a year ago, roughly the same time I sensed the disruption...her grandfather's disapproval of the man, no not a man ...something else...the creature she's been consorting with...could this be it? Yes...I think so... _

By now the old man had finished his tour of the grounds and was standing in front of a gargantuan tree. "And this, young man, is this the Goshinboku that supposedly had Inuyasha pinned to it for 50 years."

Something else occurred to Wei as he the old man fell silent to allow a proper examination of this arboreal giant. The only thing the old man had ignored, which seemed suspicious because of his garrulous nature, was a building which must have seen a lot of use judging by the path that had been worn in the grass leading to it.

Wei pointed at it and asked "If you don't mind telling me, what is in that building over there."

There was a brief, almost imperceptible hesitation, before an answer came. "That building? It is just a well house, nothing too special."

The smile that curled Wei's lips raised the hairs on the elder Higurashi's neck. For some reason it brought to mind the way a serpent might smile as it prepared to strike its prey. "It must have something special about it if it has a house protecting it."

An acute feeling of anxiety came over Higurashi as the sinister lines of Wei's smile etched themselves permanently in his mind. "Thank you for your time and trouble on my behalf. I can tell you honestly that I have found your tour most informative and I deeply appreciate the significance of this shrine. Have a pleasant day."

With those oddly disturbing words, Wei turned and began to make his way to the exit of the shrine.


	11. Eat Well

Chapter 11 Eat well...

"WATCH OUT KAGOME! SHE'S GONNA HIT YOU!" Rin screamed at the top of her lungs.

Kagome did her level best to avoid the blows aimed at her head while remaining upright. Sweat was pouring down her brow, stinging her eyes, and partially blinding her.

Sesshoumaru stared into the determined eyes of his opponent, looking for a sign of failing strength. Unfortunately for him, he saw none. "You know, Miroku, I can hold up Kagome much longer than you can hold up Sango."

The monk's lips quirked upwards in a smug smile. "The real question is not whose shoulders will get tired first but rather which one of our women will break the other's egg. Sango has a lot more combat training than Kagome and I'll wager on her."

Kagome leaned right, urging Sesshoumaru to step in that direction while aiming a swipe at the egg taped to Sango's head. Miroku stepped to the right as well also shortening the distance between Sango and Kagome, causing her blow to be jammed against the side of Sango's head rather than land on her forehead.

"Looks like Sesshoumaru isn't quite as skillful without the use of his abilities." Sango taunted Kagome. They had all agreed earlier that it wouldn't be a fair contest unless he was prohibited from using his inhuman abilities.

Kagome was about to retort when Jaken shouted his support for Sesshoumaru, "MY LORD CAN BEAT YOUR MONK WITH OR WITHOUT HIS POWERS."

Kohaku remained silent throughout the engagement but had his almond eyes were locked on his sister and he was privately cheering her on. Emphasis on privately. No need to get Rin upset with him by cheering for the rival team out loud.

Sesshoumaru faked left as if to step in that direction but instead stepped back with his left foot and presented his and Kagome's profile, allowing both teams to have one perfect shot at the other's egg.

Both Sango and Kagome realized the perfect opportunity in front of them and swung for the white oval attached to the other's head. The stances of the men whom they were sitting on determined the course of the swing. Kagome's blow was swung in an overhead motion while Sango's came in on a horizontal arc.

For a moment, time seemed to elongate as each brought their makeshift weapon around, both women committed fully to the attack in a determined attempt to spill liquid gold across the other's face. But in the space of a crucial second Sesshoumaru assured their victory by pivoting on his right foot a few degrees. Since Kagome's attack was on a vertical path, the pivot barely affected her aim. Sango, on the other hand, was using a horizontal path toward her target whose relative position had just altered by several inches.

The world was suspended in a moment of time, as participants and observers were caught in a seemingly everlasting intake of breath as the sudden inevitable realization of their triumph and defeat dawned.

A loud crack was heard.

"UHG... ITS DISGUSTING!"

"TAKE THAT SANGO!"

"HA! MY LORD NEVER LOSES!"

"I knew this was a bad idea," Sango commented as she wiped egg yolk from her face. Her brown eyes contained the look of one who was not used to losing and hated it passionately. "I should never have let you talk me into this, Kagome."

"You knew the nature of the game when you agreed to play. Only one of us could win," Kagome answered, as she got off of her boyfriend's shoulders. Sango was likewise climbing off of Miroku's shoulders, taking care not to get yolk on him. "Ugh, I'm gonna go clean up."

"Kagome," the auburn haired Shippou cried as he latched onto her. "Can we play with that disc thingy again? I like that one."

"It's called a 'frizbee' Shippou and it's dark enough that we could lose it. Maybe tomorrow on the other side of the well. But right now I think it is time to eat, that last game along with the soccer match left me pretty hungry."

Shippou was disappointed that he wouldn't see the frizbee flying once more; its spinning motion made the designs on it seem alive. He could accept it though, if it meant eating. The food from Kagome's home was much better than what was available in the village. Especially the candies and other sweets.

"Well, I better go check with Kaede to see if the food is ready," Kagome said as she put Shippou down.

"You don't need to bother, I can tell that it is ready," Sesshoumaru whispered into her ear, startling Kagome who turned around to face him. "Would you quit sneaking up on me like that!"

Sesshoumaru put on an innocent face. As much as he was able to anyway while he wore his distinct markings. "I wasn't sneaking, you just weren't paying attention. There is a difference."

"Oh whatever, you do that purposefully and you know it. Now if you don't have anything better to do besides freaking me out I could use some help setting up the table."

By the time the table was prepared and the dishes placed on it, Shippou had to be restrained by Rin and Kohaku to prevent him from snitching something to eat.

The staple foods of the typical Japanese meal were all present and accounted for: bowls of rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables and fish or meat depending on an individual's preference. Several types of noodles udon, soba and ramen (which were conveniently priced at the supermarket) and were served in quantities sufficient for a person to gorge themselves if they so desired.

In addition, some sort of roll containing the scent of tasty meat and spices which Kagome had brought was tantalizing Shippous nose. At last Kagome brought out the final, and from Shippou's green-eyed point of view, most important dish: desert. For desert she had brought back with her two of the "chocolate cake" things that he was dying to eat.

"You may release Shippou now," Sesshoumaru declared in a voice of silken steel as he and Kagome seated themselves. "It is time to eat."


	12. State of Affairs

Chapter 12 State of Affairs

Shippou immediately went for the cake but was stopped by Kagome's almond eyes which burned him to a crisp in a silent scolding. Retreating from the cakes(momentarily), Shippou decided instead that he would focus on the okonomiyaki. Shippou felt his taste buds shiver in delight as perfectly seasoned pork with onions and mushrooms intermingled with the taste of dough on his tongue.

The rest of the table was similarly pleased with the culinary creations and a moment later conversation over Kagome's era began as Rin asked about other lands. She had actually been to the future once but Sesshoumaru had never allowed her to go beyond the Sunset shrine. Privately he had confessed to Kagome that he wasn't sure how Rin could adjust to the future. Even with everything she had seen, Rin was still simultaneously dazzled and frightened by the changes 500 years could bring. Every appliance and convenience that Sesshoumaru and Kagome took for granted, Rin approached with a recklessness born out of naiveté. Her first experience with electricity had nearly been her last when she tried to examine an electric socket to see if thunder storms were contained within them.

Recurring dreams of a charcoal Rin had plagued Sesshoumaru enough to deny for a time her repeated requests to go to the future again. Shippou had only been an additional inconvenience, as he often complained about a travel ban enacted because of her carelessness. He had missed out on the first trip due to a sickness and felt grossly mistreated when Rin had seen the future but not him. Once again Rin related to Shippou the moving carriages she had seen that had roared to life, as well as a box with people in it. While Rin described to Shippou, Kohaku, and Jaken(who were always baffled by the story) what she had seen in Kagome's time, the other end of the table began a separate discussion. Somehow the conversation directed itself toward Miroku and Sango who both declined an invitation to the future much to Kagome's disappointment.

"Kagome, I can't deny a certain curiosity," Sango admitted. "But right now it would be best for some of us to remain here; namely Miroku, myself, Jaken, and Kaede, to gather as much information as possible about..." Sango hesitated in discomfort for a heartbeat; "...local events."

Kagome immediately understood the true meaning of her friend's words. Sango was really planning to search out any threats in the area and identify them before they could harm Kagome. And knowing Sango, she would have every intention of destroying them if she could. But to avoid ruining the lighthearted atmosphere they had created, she had tried to disguise her plans as something more innocuous sounding. At once Kagome felt gratitude for Sango's devotion to her, but couldn't express it as such without defeating the purpose of her bluff.

Kagome thought quickly of a way to provide a cover for the truth. "Well, that sounds like a good idea. Besides I'm sure you wouldn't want to be fried to a crisp like Rin almost was." _The lies we tell to our loved ones to protect them from the sharp edges of truth._

"That reminds me," Miroku broke in as he addressed Sesshoumaru. "What are your plans as far as Rin and the future are concerned? Since you've obviously decided to allow her into the future once more, does that mean you have a place for her there?"

Sesshoumaru let out an irritated sigh. "No, and her sudden appearance would be difficult to explain to my family, not to mention any authorities. If I were to try and send her to any school or any official institution uncomfortable questions would be raised. While I'm certain I could obtain forgeries for birth certificates or whatever, those could easily come back to haunt me. Similarly the use of spells might attract unwanted attention from other youkai or worse. And that's not even considering Rin's dangerous ignorance."

"So there are still youkai in Kagome's time?" Sango asked. "From the way she described it I got the impression that they were gone." She gave Sesshoumaru a significant look. "Excepting you of course"

The implacably serious expression that Sesshoumaru had worn for nearly all his life appeared on his reincarnation's face. "I assure you, they are there. They are simply keeping a low profile in their everyday lives, but many high-powered business men in our time are not in fact human. The majority of youkai that are alive are youkai that are gifted in assuming a human appearance. The one's that can't do so are rare and live in very remote areas."

Sesshoumaru paused to try and find words that would be understood by people from 500 years ago in his past.

"In our time there is a term called 'evolution' which describes the natural phenomenon whereby different types of creatures either adapt to the pressures of the world they live in or are driven to extinction. Youkai are subject to that same force. The ones that could blend in did so and thrived. The one's that couldn't, didn't."

"Beyond that though, a more benign, or at least less predatory, attitude towards humans is present. Cooperation with a chosen few humans who know the truth and self-policing of violence seems to be accepted by those in power, who wish to spare us a fractured society. I believe that that human ingenuity in weapons development provided a decisive advantage in securing this peace. Technology and numbers have persuaded youkai to stay in the shadows and acquire wealth and political power to shape the world to their desires rather than overt displays of force."

Kagome finished it from there. "So yes, they're still alive; living in the shadows and taking advantage of human disbelief. Or ignorance. Call it what you will."

Sango and Miroku had curious expressions on their faces as if they were questioning whether they could believe their ears. Before either of them could articulate any thoughts they were having, Kagome felt a familiar weight cling to her back.

"Kagome I am just going to hang here until you leave so I can't miss out. You don't mind do you?" Shippou asked while looking at Kagome with such a pitiable expression in his big green eyes that she felt positive he had been practicing when she wasn't around.

Kagome reached around and brought the kitsune to her rest in her lap while scratching the soft down of his ears. "Much as I love you I do like some private time every now and again. I wouldn't leave you out though; you should know that."

Shippou didn't reply with words, but simply snuggled in closer to her warm embrace. As Sesshoumaru resisted the inborn urge to rip the other youkai away from her, -he knew it was irrational, but that didn't mean much to his territorial nature - a new scent entered into his perceptions. It was the tangy aroma of fear, the kind one gets before taking a test or facing parents in an awkward situation. At the far end of the table Kohaku got up and approached where Kagome and Sesshoumaru were sitting. Although his outward appearance gave none of his anxiety away, Sesshoumaru knew that his stomach must be clenching in knots.

"Kagome," Kohaku began in a deferential tone, while keeping his eyes lowered. "I would like to know if I too can travel with you to the future."


	13. The Unexpected

Chapter 13 Unexpected

Sango was visibly surprised by her brothers request as she turned to focus her attention on him. "Kohaku you want to go with Kagome? I got the impression you had little interest in going through the well. While Shippou and Rin have been badgering them-" Sango motioned to Sesshoumaru and Kagome, "-for the past 6 months about a trip, you've remained pretty quiet."

A twitch ran across Kohaku's face. "I...wasn't sure how to ask."

Sesshoumaru couldn't resist an opening like that. "Well Kohaku," he began in a condescending lecturing tone eerily similar to what college professors must have practiced years for. "First you form thoughts in your head. Then, using your tongue, teeth, and lips you should form words and string them together in a sentence. Understand?"

Kagome and Sango both were glaring daggers at Sesshoumaru for his sarcasm which had rendered Kohaku mute and flaming red in the cheeks. Miroku, however, evidently thought it was most amusing and had to bite the back of his hand to prevent himself also earning Sango's ire.

Just as Kagome was opening her mouth to ask how Sesshoumaru could go from being so sweet to a total jackass, Rin entered the conversation with her own pleadings. At 11 years old, one could begin to see the woman she would grow into with time. The extra weight of her youth was being melted away to leave what Sesshoumaru imagined Sango to look like when she was younger. As with Sango, Rin's form had become lean and her movements were fluid and controlled, like that of a feline. Her lustrous black hair had grown out and been gathered into a braid at her back allowing full attention to be focused on her oval face with its refined cheekbones and disarming smile. A smile that Sesshoumaru always found difficult to resist. "Please lord Sesshoumaru? Won't you take Kohaku with us?"

Sesshoumaru was fairly certain that if he were to say "no" Kagome would go from being irritated with him to being totally furious with him. If there was one thing that even powerful Taiyoukai treaded carefully around, it was an enraged lover. _Especially if they are the guardian of the Shikon no Tama and have powers like Kagome's._ _I wonder how often my father found himself in similar straits? _

A long forgotten memory sparked in his mind, like a gem that captured an errant ray of moonlight and shone out in the night. Once more he heard his father's voice intone a piece of wisdom to his son.

_"Sesshoumaru, a woman's wrath is nothing to take lightly."_

He recalled daring to ask whether it was perhaps better not to love at all and to avoid becoming a slave to the heart.

As the reflections of the fiery light thrown by the torches danced in his eyes, Sesshoumaru realized more than ever just how profoundly wrong he had been in his past life. _Love isn't bondage in chains; it is liberation. Before, when I sheathed my heart in ice, that's when I was in a cage; one of my own making. With Kagome, I'm more free than I've ever been. _

Sesshoumaru adopted a softer expression for his face.

"Yes Rin, Kohkau may, but while you two are in the future don't think you can neglect your training. I expect him to continue teaching you no matter which time he is in."

Rin clapped her hands together and thanked her Lord before turning to Kohaku and almost knocking him over with one of her overly enthusiastic hugs. Although his eyes did not linger on the display of affection, Sesshoumaru easily smelled the renewed nervousness that the boy gave off in the close and public embrace with Rin. An inspiration struck Sesshoumaru to win Kagome's approval back.

"It's fine Kohaku, I'm sure Rin's judgment can be trusted in this matter." Kohaku immediately relaxed and while not looking directly at Kagome, Sesshoumaru could feel her icy anger at him beginning to drain away and be replaced with the usual warmth she held for him.

"So then, Shippou," Sesshoumaru began in an attempt to create a better atmosphere. "Rin tells me that your skill in gaming is not nearly as impressive as hers. Apparently she has a higher Tetris score than you and is quite proud of it."

Shippou jumped from Kagome's lap and began to shake his tiny fist furiously much to the amusement of everyone. "That's only because she has a death grip on the Gameboy! If it could be pried away from her for more than two minutes at a time my score would be much higher!"

Rin immediately denied this and insisted that Shippou was secretly afraid of the Game Boy and thought that if he used it too long he might be unable to put it down ever again. The spirits inside might enchant him forever.

_A valid belief considering how addictive games are _Sesshoumaru thought privately

As the accusations and counter-accusations were leveled by the youths, Miroku decided to put in that his score in Tetris was higher than either of theirs and that if anyone was the superior player it was him because Tetris required a lot more skill than first appearances suggested.

Kagome only rolled her eyes as the competition expanded to include Kohaku's accomplishments but privately she was pleased at the conversation's absurdity and the smiles it brought to the participants faces. _It's nice to see them bantering like this, but I think I want to call it quits for the evening._

Gently grasping Sesshoumaru's hand, she rose from the table with its oblivious occupants and stole away to her residence in the feudal era. Her home away from home was actually quite well outfitted thanks to Jaken. Knowing his master's tastes, Jaken had it built along lines that he thought were neither too ostentatious nor unimpressive to an observer. Built under the influence of the Shinden Zukuri style of architecture, it contained a number of elegant rectangular rooms that had been joined by long corridors surrounding a landscaped garden and pond. In a perfect model of refinement and simplicity, its interior posts formed a supporting skeleton for the roof of thatched cypress. The exterior walls consisted of movable panels that slid in grooves. Wood panels (for use at night or in rainy weather) alternated with screens of mounted rice paper (used for warmer days). The interior of the house was flexibly subdivided by shoji screens into a series of airy spaces.

As Kagome pulled back one of the shoji screens to reveal the impenetrable darkness inside, she was hit by the realization that the screen was a perfect metaphor for death. Just like death it, it acted as an inscrutable portal from the known to the unknown. From the softly moonlit grounds outside to the unseeable confines of the house, she had suddenly arrived at a pivot point between two worlds. Looking into that dark abyss, questions of whether she had made the most of those precious few steps she had taken on the path of her life filled her mind.

The most poignant in her mind was also the one that filled her with a sudden need. It wasn't enough to just kiss Sesshoumaru or to be held in his arms; she needed to be one with him in the most intimate way possible. For at least once in her life, she wanted to know all that there was to being a woman, to know what it was to be in the deepest of embraces. She wanted all barriers between her and Sesshoumaru, both the physical and the intangible, to be stripped away in a perfect expression of their love.

When Kagome turned around to face Sesshoumaru, the look in her eyes sent burning shivers of desire racing down his nerves. The moonlight cascading over her illuminated not only her feminine perfection, but also the exquisite hunger that shone out of the almond depths of her eyes. Gently and with a mouthwatering smile, Kagome took his hand and led him to the promise of paradise. Penetrating the darkness inside, Kagome didn't even bother to light the interior lamps, preferring instead to call on her holy powers to release a soft, pinkish-white luminescence from her person, which gave an ethereal magnificence to her already angelic grace.

Following Kagome to the bedroom, Sesshoumaru noticed the light she gave off pulsed to the rhythm of her heartbeat. When her heart expanded during its rest, the soft light dimmed slightly as if in sympathy. When her heart contracted to give its liquid life to the body, the light brightened momentarily. And as Kagome pulled back the shoji screen to enter the bedroom, he could hear her heart increase its pace in anticipation of what was coming. The steady pulsing of light bathing the room responded in perfect sync to the tempo set by her heart.

As Kagome gently pushed him down to a sitting position on the futon, she knew Sesshoumaru was more than ready. She could feel the power radiating off of him as his senses were pushed to their peak in his desire to stitch this night flawlessly into the tapestry of his memory.

Kneeling before him, Kagome drank in the sight of his glorious golden eyes as they blazed like twin stars, searing her with their inner fire. Although neither could articulate it, both had the unexplainable impression that fate had been leading them to this exact moment; a moment when the rest of the universe ceased to exist, when all that was or would ever be had disappeared beyond some unseen horizon and left them alone to create a new world between just the two of them.

Author's Note: For whatever reason murder is OK as part of a story but sex scenes are taboo so I can't post the next chapter here, it will jump to 15. There is an important plot point though so to read it you will need to go to either www(insert a period here)dokuga(insert a period here)com or www(insert a period here)inuyasha-fanfiction(insert a period here)com


	14. After Glow

Author's note: chapter 14 is basically an explicit sex scene and I think we all know FFnet has some issues with sex scenes so I am skipping to 15. Chapter 14 can be found at either www(insert period here)dokuga (insert period here)com or www(insert period here)Inuyasha-fanfiction(insert period here)com There is an important plot point contained in the sex scene so I advise you to read it even if you are opposed to sex scenes.

I'm going to give a shout out to the 1 person in the Netherlands reading this. Hallo, hoe gaat het? I am afraid that is pretty much all the Dutch I know and it doesn't really count since I cheated and looked it up online. My apologies.

Chapter 15 Afterglow

As the filtered morning light washed across Kagome's face like a gentle golden rain, Sesshoumaru memorized every beautiful line, every luscious curve, every vibrant color she possessed.

Reflecting on his previous life, he couldn't believe that he had denied himself this for so long. It terrified him to think that he had almost annihilated this life before it began, that Kagome had nearly met her end at his hand on more than one occasion. Frustration once again gripped Sesshoumaru as he went over the prophecy Kagome had given. He was determined to protect her, but how could he when any action he might take, could trigger the event. Whether he stepped backwards or forwards, left or right, in the future or the past, an unseen threat was still reaching for Kagome with invisible talons.

_The only thing I can do, it seems, is stay as close to Kagome as her own shadow and hope I recognize...whatever it is... before it happens..._The very thought of Kagome missing from his life sent a thrill of black pain spiraling through his heart. _That is why the future she saw cannot come to pass. I refuse to be without her. Even if I have to move heaven and hell, I will keep her by my side._

Reaching out to stroke her raven tresses, he then leaned over and licked her lips savoring their sweet taste. "Wake up sleeping beauty. It's time for breakfast."

Kagome opened her eyes slowly and stared into his golden orbs before reaching her arms around his neck and stroking his flowing silver mane. "Mmmm...I know just what I want."

Sesshoumaru smiled down at her. "Up and at them, Kagome. If we don't meet the others for breakfast Rin and Shippou and possibly Kohaku will be tearing down the shoji screens to get at us to join them. I know they have to learn about the birds and the bees eventually, but not this soon or that way."

Kagome reluctantly rose and began to stretch languidly causing popping sounds to come from her joints. "You ever wonder who came up with that story or what it is exactly? No one I know has ever heard it and actually I never had the 'sex talk' with my mother either. Not that I'm complaining of course, that would be unbearably awkward. Guess sex ed., romance novels, and TV made up for it anyway."

Sesshoumaru went to a dresser which, thankfully, was stocked with modern and feudal age attire. While rooting through it to find something appropriate he started cursing himself mentally. The pants he'd been wearing last night were among his favorite and in a moment of lust he had destroyed them.

_Damnit!_

Kagome's light chuckle pricked his ears. "You should be more careful in how you treat your clothing." She pointed to his shredded pants. "I would've happily taken them off for you."

Sesshoumaru looked at her pointedly with his amber eyes while pulling on some boxer briefs. "You probably would have torn them to pieces also. You were very naughty last night."

"What can I say? You're just a bad influence on me." Kagome replied, as she pulled on her top. "Bringing out my animal side and all. By the way, was it my imagination or did you seem to have a great deal of know-how on your side last night?"

Sesshoumaru, who had finished dressing, smiled proudly at her before gliding up behind her to play with the waistband of her panties. She knew he loved their black silken lace and had chosen to wear them on purpose. "One can find a lot of useful information on the internet. Of course you have to wade through gigabytes of porn first..."

"And useful it was," Kagome granted in a mirthful voice. A pang of hunger shot through her stomach and made her realize just how much energy she must have spent last night.

Sesshoumaru was all too aware of her need for sustenance and released her. Since both he and Kagome spent most of their time in the future, their house was in the past rarely had food in stock. Consequently they generally ate with Sango and Miroku who were always happy to accommodate them.

"I wonder what's on the menu today," Kagome said.

Breakfast, as it turned out, was rather rushed as Shippou and Rin were not-so-subtly pressuring the participants to hurry up with their meals after they finished scarfing down their own. Kohaku was somewhat better mannered, but still sending silent vibes, urging a speedy departure. Sesshoumaru, meanwhile, was straining his senses outward for anything even remotely suspicious. On one level, he was actually eager to return to the future as well, because it seemed the safer of the two eras. But on another level, a sense of trepidation filled him. The future was like a dark corridor that they were all running blindly through. _I wonder how many others have had this problem of trying to escape the future but being unsure how to do so? How do you fight the flow of time without being dragged under by it?_

Sesshoumaru was dragged out of his dark musings by Kagome's bright and slightly mocking voice. "Would you blink every once in a while? It's disconcerting to have your unbroken stare shining out at me. Oh, and let's get a move on. I finished."

Shippou suddenly appeared at Kagome's shoulder and grouched irately in his high-pitched voice.

"It's about time. After all that prep work he made us go through," Shippou said, while gesturing to Sesshoumaru, "No one can say we haven't earned it."

Kagome pulled the kitsune into her arms and into a motherly hug. "Someone is just a little impatient. Well, we're on our way now so no more fussing."

Shippou's only response was a barely audible purr.

"Rin, Kohaku," Sesshoumaru called out while lifting his backpack. "Mainly just Rin actually, try to keep your curiosity under control. And remember don't mention anything about this era in public spaces. Now follow me."


	15. In the Crosshairs

Chapter 16 In the Crosshairs

Although the Chinese have a reputation for discipline and the ability to delay gratification, Wei found his patience wearing thin. He had failed to anticipate that those he was tracking would not necessarily make a speedy return to the present and could in fact stay in the past for days; possibly the entire week. Consequently he was in a foul mood as he waited for their inevitable return. The only sources of relief to his agitation were the books he had purchased detailing the legends of the Shrine.

While the second Wei, his doppelganger, kept watch over the shrine, the original Wei had occupied himself by studying the history of the shrine. The author, Wei grudgingly conceded, had done a superb job in the retelling and offering of in-depth analysis for the characters actions and their motivations. Wei had found the compendium of weapons and attacks to be the most interesting and wondered if he would be witness to any of them while in the past._ Or perhaps in the present since something not human keeps traveling back and forth..._

Whatever other thoughts Wei may have had ground to a sudden halt as an invisible ripple

washed over him.

His quarry had returned.

Unaware that there were observers to their actions, the odd band of youkai and humans emerged from the dark interior of the well house and into the streaming sunshine.

"Ughh! What is that smell?"

"Shippou," Sesshoumaru said as he turned to observe the kitsune crinkling his nose. "I should have mentioned that the air in this time smells much worse. It's because of all the pollution; you'll get used to it though."

Shippou looked at him unhappily. "I thought the future would smell nicer; like Kagome does."

At the sound of her name Kagome decided to add her own commentary motioning to follow her to the house. "It could be much worse Shippou. If this were an industrial zone in China, you would be practically chipping your teeth on the amount of pollutants in the air."

Wei smiled grimly to himself as he watched the odd assortment of creatures before him. The books he had bought turned out to be not just a useful way to kill time but a wise investment overall. Now he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the identity and nature of the one whom he'd been sensing. It was Sesshoumaru, the Inuyoukai Lord of the Western Lands, the heir to the great Inutaisho.

_Life_ _is just full of surprises, isn't it? It would appear that rumors of Lord Sesshoumaru's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Can't believe everything you read though, unfortunately. _Wei fastened his attention on a raven faired woman next to Sesshoumaru._ That woman, Kagome if I heard correctly, she would most likely be the one I need. The 'priestess from another world who was born with the Shikon no Tama within her.' For this to work, I must hold off Sesshoumaru while I take her. _

Wei did not need to expend conscious effort to summon the extension to him or to give him instructions; indeed they were both Wei and their wills were indivisible. The identity of Wei, being shared between the two current bodies, knew that the lesser body would need power transferred to it to delay Seshoumaru while the other subdued Kagome.

Wei turned to look himself in the eyes. The recently created extension, lifted its shirt to reveal its bronze skin. Wei made a reverse knife-hand and focused his power, redirecting it to the tips of his fingers. A second later, and Wei's hand shot forward, plunging deep into the other's gut and breaking the skin like wet paper mache. Blood poured out of the wound and started a descent towards the earth, but only for a moment. The laws of gravity found themselves strangely impotent against the crimson fluid as the blood reversed its flow back toward the wound and pooled concentrically around it.

Searing power born of hate and vengeance flowed into the body, taking fully half of all that was available.

Sesshoumaru, narrowed his eyes. A vague sense of unease that silently urged him to leave had come over him. "Rin, we told Souta that you would be arriving today. Kagome and I need to get something from my residence here; we'll be back shortly."

Rin nodded and led Shippou and Kohaku inside while chattering away about showers.

Underneath Sesshoumaru, a large white cloud formed which caused Kagome to look at him questioningly. He rarely if ever used his powers in this era and their use now signified that something was bothering him. Gripping Kagome to him, Sesshoumaru did not bother to give an answer to her unspoken question and instead lifted into the sky overhead, atop the cloud.

Wei cursed silently in his native tongue as his key to the past floated away with that damned creature. Although he possessed incredible gifts, flight was not one of them. The most he could do would be to give chase by leaping from rooftop to rooftop and he was uncertain about the viability of that option. On the other hand he couldn't afford to chase them in a more conventional manner; a car just wasn't suitable for the task _Which really only leaves me with the first option. When the fox is hunting the hare, stealth is essential. Now I must be just as stealthy and not give warning of my presence._


	16. Knock Knock

Chapter 17 Knock Knock

"Don't give me that silent treatment crap!" Kagome breathed angrily. "I asked a question and I want an answer! Why aren't we using the car?"

Sesshoumaru sighed inwardly. There were times when he wished she would just be more like Rin and not demand answers from him. "We aren't using the car because I feel it is safer to travel like this to my apartment. We are going there so I can get my weapons."

Kagome put on an exaggerated expression of remembering something. "Strange, I could've sworn that you had expressed a preference for using modern means of transportation. Something about not wanting to draw unwanted attention, as I recall."

In the distance, Sesshoumaru could make out his apartment building a few miles away. In this life he had unknowingly chosen housing that was relatively close to Kagome; not that such was too unexpected considering he had been searching for her unconsciously. If he had been traveling in his Mazda Millennium it would have taken quite a bit longer to get within sight of his destination, but flying helped cut the travel time considerably.

"I have reconsidered in this instance. The people below us will merely see a cloud passing overhead. If anyone does manage to spot us, who are they going to tell? It would simply be an invitation to an insane asylum."

"I rather assumed that when you said you wanted to avoid attention you meant from the other youkai in the area."

"To a lesser extent yes, but mostly it was the prying eyes of the rest of the population I was concerned with."

In an afterthought he added "Damn, I forgot to bring back the customized sheathe holster I had Jaken commission."

"What?" Kagome asked. "Custom sheathe?"

"For my swords; simply speaking it's more practical to carry them on my back now, rather than on my waist."

As the tan shoe box shape of the Makoto apartment building came ever closer, Sesshoumaru began to scan the surroundings for a place to land discreetly. His apartment was on the 4th floor, and he couldn't just float to the balcony, romantic though it might be.

Although Kagome was presently incapable of knowing his thoughts as clearly as she had before, she nonetheless could feel how the attention of her lover's mind flowed. "Use the fire-escape. That is the least conspicuous route."

Sesshoumaru planted a light kiss on Kagome's cheek in silent appreciation.

Two sets of identical eyes watched as a lone white cloud came to a stop above an inauspicious apartment building. The cloud mysteriously and suddenly evaporated and a blur of something shot down toward the rooftop. A few moments later, and the fire escape had two figures descending down it. The two Wei's watched in silence while contemplating how to obtain the woman, Kagome. _ Undoubtedlythe den of Sesshoumaru is saturated with his jyaki and a clear trail will be laid to it. _Making haste to the entrance of the building, the two pseudo twins ignored the curious looks they got as they barged in. For once, Wei felt gratitude towards the historical customs of the Japanese, which discouraged confrontation and inconvenient questions.

Sesshoumaru pulled out the jangling silver ring which contained his keys. Flipping it to the desired key, he shoved it in the lock and twisted. The air of his apartment, which always suggested the heavy use of hair care products, rushed out at him and Kagome.

Sesshoumaru felt a ripple of amusement roll over Kagome and sighed. She never seemed to get tired of making comments about his personal hygiene. "Not now Kagome, we aren't going to be here that long anyway."

Kagome pouted as she walked in, "If only I had the amount of time to dedicate to my hair that you do."

Sesshoumaru smirked slightly while closing the door behind him, running a hand through his silver mane, which now reached to only his upper back. "If you think I spend a lot of time on my hair now, you should consider what it must have been like the during the feudal ages. I can't tell you how glad I am that hair dryers were invented, along with shampoo and conditioner. Now, with the help of Vidal Sassoon, I am indisputably the finest Lord around."

"You're certainly the cockiest Lord around I think."

Sesshoumaru smiled, "What I said still holds true."

He slipped past Kagome and went to a sword case and two sheathe holsters on the wall. The design of the holsters represented a major change for Sesshoumaru in how he armed himself. In the feudal era his sword holster had always rested on his hip, but since his rebirth into the modern era, he decided to strap the sheaths to his back instead of imitating the samurai of old.

Taking down the holsters, he silently slipped one over each shoulder before turning his eyes to the sword case itself. Its contents were the stuff of legends: the Tensaiga, its brother sword the Tessaiga, and the Toukijin. Sesshoumaru reached out and removed the Toukijin and the Tensaiga from the case. _I believed that in this life that I would no longer have to defend what is mine; but now with shadows of the future looming over us, I am forced to draw these once more._

As Sesshoumaru went about arranging his swords on his person, the Tensaiga on his right shoulder and the Toukijin on his left, he turned to face Kagome. "Would you mind, carrying the Tetsaiga in my backpack over there. I don't have a holster for it."

Kagome complied with his request, securing the Tetsaiga inside the bag, but had to ask, "Why don't you just carry it in the sheathe instead of the Toukijin. And why aren't you wearing the swords on your hip like you used to? I didn't realize you had become a ninja."

"First, the Toukijin doesn't undergo a transformation like the Tetsaiga does and so it would be too heavy for you to carry,"_ And I'm hoping that its spell of protection will protect you just like it did in my father's tomb... _

"Second, the Samurai style of sword carrying has sever drawbacks. While it is useful for single strike techniques, running with it is a pain, because the sheathe constantly slaps against your leg. In fact, just walking that way can be something of a hassle. Since I am not wearing my old armor anymore this is much more comfortable and permits greater freedom of movement."

Kagome opened her mouth to respond but a sharp rapping came from the door.


	17. First Impressions Matter

The two Wei's traced the _jyaki_ of Sesshoumaru to the fourth floor where they separated, one of them rushing up the next flight of stairs to the 5th floor landing until he was directly above his 4th floor counterpart. Acting in perfect unison, they both opened the landing doors to their respective floors and proceeded forward. Tracing identical paths to the northeastern room of each floor, they both stopped in front of the doors to said rooms. One reached out to knock on the target's door while the other summoned their blade and prepared himself to strike from above.

* * *

For Sesshoumaru and Kagome, the few moments would be a blur of confusion, horror, and pain.

Not bothering to remove his swords, Sesshoumaru opened the door to face the future he'd been trying to avoid. At the door's threshold, a sharply dressed Chinese male awaited.

Although nothing was noticeably threatening about him, a silent alarm was sounding in the inuyoukai's mind. It was the same primal warning that every animal to a greater or lesser extent possessed; the same untraceable fear that an antelope would feel when a lion stalked them unseen.

Kagome heard the door swoosh open, and the voice she heard next made darkness rush at her like a freight train causing her to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing. It was the same voice from her dream, the voice of the future, the voice of her death. Dread filled her heart as a raging blackness began to eat away at her mind.

"Hello, my name is Wei Cheng," Dark brown eyes locked with golden ones. Staring into their depths, Sesshoumaru was unaware of his muscles tensing for an attack. "And I'd like to ask you a question. Do the Japanese honestly think they won't have to pay for their crimes against China?"

Before Sesshoumaru could fully understand the meaning of those calmly spoken words, a blazing red pillar of fire crashed down on him from above and smashed him through the floor like it was made of match sticks.

* * *

From her place, Kagome could not witness all that happened but rather only bits and pieces. One moment Death was talking to Sesshoumaru, the next a roar filled her ears as the hallway belched fire and brimstone. And stepping through those hungry orange flames, Kagome saw the face of her executioner.

It was his eyes that immediately captured hers and from which she was powerless to look away. Eyes that brimmed with a hatred so deep, they could have been dark oceans of infinity in which she was drowning.

Wei wasted no time in surging forward to seize Kagome who looked at him in muted shock. The expression on her face suggested that she had seen him before somewhere, but Wei was positive that such was impossible. He would have remembered someone like her more clearly. He almost put the question to her, but instead slammed a reverse hook kick into her temple, leaving Kagome on the edge of unconsciousness.

Across a vast gulf she heard his harsh voice. "No time to play with your dog anymore today."

* * *

Life is filled with surprises. Today that particular truth would take on new meaning to several people. Wen Ho was one of them. While walking to the Makoto apartment buildings and wondering how she was going to complete a 12 page paper in 6 days, she snapped her head up as an explosion sounded somewhere nearby and she tried to search for its source. Around her others did the same and all exchanged perplexed looks as the source of the explosion eluded them. The next second and an answer would make itself violently known. Wen Ho stared in silent horror as almost an entire side of her apartment building was vaporized in furious maelstrom of fire. Leaping out from the twisted and smoldering remains, she could just make out someone with another person on their shoulder and one more following them with an object that glinted in the light. An object that looked like a sword.

Trapped in the shock at the unreality of the situation, she barely registered the fact that the figures were making inhuman leaps away from the building toward an unknown destination.

* * *

The frail works of man didn't even slow Sesshoumaru as, under the weight of shimmering flames, he crashed through four floors to make a smoking man-sized crater in the imitation Italian marbled floor on the ground level of his building. Fierce rage and unbridled terror ripped away at the insides of Sesshoumaru, while his charred and flaking skin repaired itself. _SHIT! He's the one! And he has Kagome!_

Regaining himself, Sesshoumaru whipped out the Toukijin and blasted his own exit in a burst of turquoise ribbons of energy. Leaping high off the ground he became a blur of motion in pursuit of the one called Wei.

With Kagome in hand, the Wei twins abandoned all attempts at stealth and leapt building to building not caring if anyone saw him exhibit his power. An unmistakable aura radiating murderous intentions appeared behind them. Wind still whipping through his black hair, the rearmost Wei turned his head momentarily to take in the sight of the enraged Sesshoumaru following them. Even from the distance they had between them, the expression on his face was unmistakably that of one who was out for blood. Slowing down to buy his counterpart time against the swiftly gaining Sesshoumaru, the rear Wei alighted on a business building and set himself for battle.


	18. FIGHT: Wei vs Sesshoumaru

I will take a moment in this chapter to give a shout out to loveandfaith, sometimes known as loveinthebattlefield. Love, thank you for your reviews, you always provide encouragement to authors.

Also I will give a shout out to the person in Russia reading this. Здравствуйте!

And that is all the Russian I know and I cheated since I looked it up online.

Chapter 19 FIGHT: Wei vs Sesshoumaru

To say that Sesshoumaru was pissed would be a serious understatement. In his present state of unsuppressed fury, nothing out of hell would have dared to cross him.

He didn't know how, but there were clearly two Weis; both of whom were not human and one them was carrying HIS Kagome away. The other was facing him with a sword drawn and was obviously preparing to throw down with Sesshoumaru.

_I don't have time for this..._

Not even bothering to slow himself, Sesshoumaru let loose with the Toukijin on the Wei in front of him. Thundering streams of energy ripped through the air and tore screeching chunks of grey concrete out of where Wei-

-had been. In the space of an eye blink Wei, had jumped to meet Sesshoumaru mid-air with an overhead blow from his own sword that would have split Sesshoumaru in two had it landed. Although surprised, Seshoumarus brought Wei's attack to a screaming halt on the Toukijin's edge. The strength behind Wei's blow, however, was enough to cause them both to hurtle earthward like a meteorite.

Plummeting through the sky, Sesshoumaru twisted and slipped out of Wei's range of attack and brought himself to a graceful stop in the middle of a crosswalk just as Wei slammed through the roof of a blue Mazda Miata and set off the car's alarm, causing a piercing wail to split the air.

Although he was more than aware of the whispering and baffled stares he was getting from those around him, Sesshoumaru couldn't be bothered to pay attention to them right now as something occurred to him about Wei. _He can't fly-_

Whomever the Mazda belonged to would have to find another means of transportation because in the instant before Sesshoumaru could finish his thought the car bulged outward and was then swallowed up by a deafening explosion that sprayed flaming bits of wreckage everywhere and shattered windowpanes all around.

As if that explosion were a signal to all the bystanders, sudden chaos erupted as they all realized their own mortality and their wish to preserve it for a while longer. Going in any direction that seemed to offer safety, they stampeded wildly to put distance between themselves and the conflict.

All of that took place in only the space of a second, all of it ignored by Wei as he surged forward out of the flames and to the attack. This time though, Sesshoumaru allowed Wei to commit himself irrevocably to the attack before answering it. When he did, Sesshoumaru raised the Toukijin and lanced out with torrents of blue-green bolts that hit Wei full on and ripped away at him and the ground he was over like a hurricane of blades.

The fierce waves of energy hammered Wei back and shredded his clothes, but to Sesshoumaru's acute dismay and astonishment, did little damage to Wei himself. His bronze skin remained whole and not even a scratch showed. Even his spiked black hair was unaffected.

Apparently energy attacks would not work on him.

_Perhaps brutal trauma with the swords edge..._

A knowing and superior smile twisted Wei's lips upward. "So that is the Toukijin is it? You won't be able to hurt me with it; just as it was born from hatred and rage so was I. Let me introduce you to my sword," Wei raised it and for the first time Sesshoumaru was able to get a good look at it. Just like the Toukijin, it was a doubled edged blade, but unlike the Toukjin, its hilt was in the shape of an emerald dragon from whose open mouth the actual blade emerged like a gleaming spire. As Sesshoumaru took in the details of the sword, he began to realize that heat waves were radiating from the blade and distorting perception around it. "This is the 'Yao Yan Zhi Chou' or 'Shining Hate' in your language. With it, I will wipe Japan from the pages of history. You will never be able raise your hands against us; the Japanese won't even exist."

Sesshoumaru locked gazes with Wei. "You're totally insane. You do know that right?"

The condescending smile left Wei's face. "I would be more concerned with my own well being if I were you."

Wei suddenly slashed the Shining Hate through the air and an orange crescent of flame as wide as the street materialized and roared toward Sesshoumaru who seemed to disappear behind its burning embrace.

A confused expression appeared on Wei's face as he surveyed the empty street once the flames had extinguished themselves.

_Couldn't have been that easy..._

His confusion only deepened when he became aware of a large hole in the concrete whose edges seemed to be sizzling with some green substance. _Is that-_

Realization dawned on Wei an instant too late, as the concrete beneath his own feet suddenly started bubbling and a smell like burning ozone filled the air. Gravity did the rest as the ground around him collapsed and dropped Wei to the subway tunnel underneath, as his enemy's corrosive poison ate away at his support.

Wei maintained just enough presence of mind to bring up his guard and block just as Sesshoumaru appeared and drove in with the Toukijin swinging in with a slashing attack, angled low and to the right. Wei refused it with his own blade though and anticipated the wrist twist that allowed Sesshoumaru to slice his blade back across where he had been. Springing up, Wei moved to seize the initiative and put his opponent on the defense. Sesshoumaru ducked underneath Wei's return strike and aimed a slashing cut at Wei's legs, who succeeded in jump-evading the attack, but not the follow up that Sesshoumaru pulled with a pivot on his left hand. As Wei landed, Sesshoumaru swept his legs through Wei's, taking his feet from under him and sending him down.

Sesshoumaru jumped up to press the advantage over a fallen enemy, but to his surprise, Wei never hit the ground. Instead, he twisted with unexpected grace and turned his fall into an almost lazy backward somersault that brought him up in a defensive position.

"Nice try," Wei commented dryly.

In the distance, Sesshoumaru was able to make out a rumbling sound speeding towards them both. Unease writhed through Sesshoumaru's stomach, as he once again looked at his opponent. _I was moving faster than most youkai and he kept up with me easily..._

Further contemplation was cut short as Wei came at Sesshoumaru again his eyes cold and merciless. The Shining Hate whistled through the air as Wei tried to open the reincarnate's stomach but failed to make contact as Sesshoumaru _shifted_ backwards, but not fast enough to avoid a spinning secondary slash that drew of line of red across Sesshoumaru's torso. The blade sliced through the outer layer of skin on Sesshoumaru's upper chest but did no serious damage.

_ You're good Wei, but I am no novice._

In the fraction of a second that Wei was open for a counter attack, Sesshoumaru shifted his weight to the balls of his right foot and arced around his left foot in a roundhouse kick that slammed into Wei's ribs with a crunching sound and succeeded in sending him flying across the room to crash into a cement pillar.

Before Wei could recover, Sesshoumaru unfurled his energy whip. Its green glowing length wrapped around Wei and pinned his arms to his sides. Too fast to see, Sesshoumaru shifted his weight and swung Wei around with bone crushing force into the surrounding blue tiled pillars; shattering them like cheap glass and then crashing Wei into the surrounding walls and vending machines, leaving man sized indentions in them and sending a rainbow of food stuffs arcing through the air.

The subway platform echoed with the deep sounds of impact as Sesshoumaru bashed Wei with all his force into whatever he could. The rumbling in the distance had come much closer and lights began to shine in the tunnel.

_Perfect,_ Sesshoumaru thought.

Sesshoumaru made one last spin and then released Wei(who had lost his grip on the Shining Hate by this time) into the path of the tracks.

Right as the 11 A.M. subway train pulled in.

If Wei screamed, Sesshoumaru didn't hear it over the screeching of the train's brakes as Wei was hit by the full force of the metro train, spraying a fine red mist that coated the tunnel walls and carried the superhuman psychopath away.

Before people could pile out of the doors, Sesshoumaru changed into a blue glowing ball of light that zipped out of the hole on the street level and up into the sky.


	19. The Chase

I guess I will take a moment to plug my forum in this chapter, link is in my profile. I think I will take a moment to give a shout out to anyone in Singapore reading this. Hey guys, hope you are doing well.

Chapter 20 The Chase

Near the Sunset Shrine, the other Wei came to a stop and turned around. The defeat of his second form was somewhat irritating, but nothing that he couldn't fix. If Sesshoumaru thought it was over so quickly then he was in for a rude awakening.

Wei closed his eyes and concentrated.

In the subway Sesshoumaru had just left, the blood coating the walls began to slowly connect drop by drop. As each liquid bead of crimson joined together with another, the drops seemed to quiver in excitement and began to race toward each other to create an ever enlarging pool of blood. Although it would have struck most as a highly unusual characteristic of blood, none of this was noticed on the subway platform, however, as the people gawked at the daylight streaming through the hole above them and at the various authorities clustered around the edges.

The pool of blood, obeying a silent summons, headed into the dimly lit confines of the tunnel to join with a figure striding furiously towards the train.

Shun Oguri's life was amazingly boring by anyone's standards. As a middle aged man working for a mortgage company, his life consisted of answering borrowers' questions about loan terms and arguing with title companies about the correct vesting for legal documents. That was all about to change though and not for the better.

While police and firefighters barked orders at stunned onlookers he spotted the Shining Hate lying atop some rubble. Curious as to where it came from and what it was doing there, he picked it up for examination. An undeniable power and heat emanated from the blade and the unnerving sensations sent tingles up his arm in a primitive warning of the flesh. Shun was suddenly overcome with a feeling of intense nausea and _heard _thousands, countless thousands of voices condemning him, damning him, howling for his evisceration. Before he could examine it any further, he felt a tapping on his shoulders.

Turning around, Shun found himself only an inch away from almond colored eyes that contained nothing but cold fury and the promise of pain. The fact that the man they belonged to was Chinese and whose clothing looked as though he had been through a war zone never quite penetrated into his mind.

"Do you hear them? Do you hear Japan's victims demanding justice? Demanding vengeance? Demanding your blood? Your death?" Wei asked, heedless of the fact that he was drawing a great many stares with his deranged questions.

"Certainly you must." Wei turned so that he could address the crowd and more importantly the policemen who were drawing their weapons. "You, all of you, owe too much to the past to be allowed to continue."

Wei ripped his sword away from the speechless man who finally realized that Wei was going to murder him and was beginning to back away as several policemen surrounded Wei and demanded that he lay down his blade. "I am here to collect what is owed; with interest."

Wei put on a mock-thoughtful expression and continued to ignore the police. "Now what do you suppose will happen next? I will give you a clue. It involves blood."

With lightning speed and inhuman strength, Wei sent his fist straight through to the other side of the man's skull, where it emerged covered in gore and blood. The onlookers started to make for the exits, but Wei wasn't finished. The police surged forward, but they would never reach Wei. Lifting the Shining Hate above him, Wei smiled as his blade glimmered and then released an expanding sphere of searing fire that instantly vaporized everyone on the subway platform.

But it didn't stop there.

The men and women above had only seconds to curse or pray to whatever they worshiped as angry red-orange lines split the pavement under them and jets of flame shot up from the cracks. A terrible groan filled the air as the ground heaved and buckled as savage fire exploded like a star beneath the surface and consumed everything in a brilliant globe of incandescence. Men and women were reduced to their constituent atoms as the fire excited their molecules and caused their bonds to rip apart. Cars, light posts, even the subway train were liquefied to glowing slag under the super heated onslaught.

The sphere of devastation continued to expand unabated and obliterated all buildings in the vicinity in a spectacular explosion of roiling plasma. When he had finished, Wei was left alone in a black and charred wasteland whose epicenter was exactly where he stood and whose surface had been effaced by a giant crater as though some gargantuan monster had torn huge clots of earth out of the landscape.

Wei inhaled deeply, savoring the charred scents around him. _I probably shouldn't have indulged myself though; Sesshoumaru already has a head start. I have to make up for lost time..._

Once Sesshoumaru had reached a sufficient height, he reverted to his human form. Feeling for Kagome's essence, he traced the invisible chord that connected them, running along its length to locate her. When he did sense her nearing the Sunset Shrine, his composure nearly broke as an epiphany blacker than night hit him. _THE WELL! HE'S GOING BACK TO THE FEUDAL ERA!_

Following on that devastating revelation, Sesshoumaru had another possibly more disturbing realization hit him as his ears picked up the sound of a monumental explosion in back of him. _The other Wei is still alive..._

With no time to spare, he raced towards the Shrine and its maiden.

Just like Sesshoumaru, Wei was heading at his top speed towards the shrine. The world around Wei was little more than multicolored blurs whipping by so fast that the people in the blurs might as well have been frozen in time. Fast as he was, Wei wasn't able to close the distance between himself and his opponent fast enough. Unlike Sesshoumaru, Wei had to follow a more circuitous route over building tops and bridges that left him a bit slower. He could just make out the Taiyoukai's form overhead and it was more than apparent that both their destinations were the same. _Less than 2 kilometers to the shrine...must slow him..._

Sesshoumaru knew that Wei was following him; his hearing easily picked up the sounds of Wei's feet crunching down on the rooftops behind him. The house for the bone eaters well was already in sight and at the speed he was traveling, Sesshoumaru would reach it and Kagome in the space of one minute. A minute whose seconds rang throughout time as a triangle of fate was drawn between the points of infinite hate, undying love, and the inescapable future.

60 seconds

The Wei already present at the well house stepped out from the shadows of the doorway

55 seconds

The pursuing Wei sliced through the air with the Shining Hate and sent a crescent of fire blazing through the reincarnate's path of descent.

50 seconds

Sesshoumaru hesitated for a moment before plunging through the inferno

45 seconds

Kagome recovered enough to raise her eyes and etch into her memory forever the sight of a silver savior emerging from roiling flames

40 seconds

Wei made the most of the split second hesitation by Sesshoumaru

35 seconds

The Taiyoukai believed for a moment that success was his

30 seconds

Kagome reached out for Sesshoumaru

25 seconds

Wei hurled the Shining Hate at Sesshouamaru

20 seconds

Sesshoumaru heard a whistling piercing the air behind him

15 seconds

Both Wei's smiled as the blade flew unerringly at their enemy's heart.

10 seconds

Sesshoumaru twisted in the air avoiding the blade

5 seconds

The Wei with Kagome caught the Shining Hate in his free hand and took aim

0 seconds

The flow of time seemed to halt for a moment as though the fates wanted to preserve that moment of hideous failure and unholy triumph forever.

Then damnation erupted from the Shining Hate and time resumed its normal flow as Sesshoumaru was hurled violently back in a ball of seething red flame that left meter wide scorch marks on the formerly pristine grounds of the shrine.

Even while the flames filled his vision, Sesshoumaru bore witness to the end of his love. The following Wei's form shimmered and imploded into a stream of blood that arced into the other Wei, splashing against his chest and then absorbing into his body. The shadows then swallowed Wei as he retreated into the well house and into the well itself as a roar split the air behind him.


	20. Past Tense

Chapter 21 Paste tense

How many have tried to control their future? How many have failed? Tomorrow is inescapable and that single truth was as clear to Kagome as her own impending death.

She stared into dark burning eyes. Eyes so filled with unquenchable hate and the promise of searing agony that they couldn't be human.

The eyes of Wei.

Eyes that had been reflected in a ghost of the future past.

Eyes now made real and boring into hers.

Just like unwitting actors on an invisible stage, Wei and Kagome played out their respective parts for the audience of the fates; that of a remorseless killer and the chosen victim.

"I would love to spend the time raping you endlessly," Wei intoned harshly, just as Kagome knew he would, "and savoring the taste of your tears on my tongue, but you strike me as one of those who would prove to be surprisingly dangerous to let live any longer than is necessary."

Kagome once again felt claws of agony rend her stomach as his blade bit into her abdomen and burst out of her back. Wei withdrew the blade slowly, relishing the heavy panting and barely suppressed screams Kagome made as he twisted it to heighten her pain.

"Die slowly."

Wei then turned his back on her leapt free of the well and into the feudal era, leaving Kagome to bleed to death in the belly of the well. Alone in the darkness for the last moments of her life.

Sesshoumaru was consumed with rage. He was drowning in despair. He was shaking in pain. He was sobbing in grief. His precious Kagome had been torn from him and from life and was trapped in another time. The bitter taste of failure and guilt despoiled his tongue. Unable to contain his agony, Sesshoumaru flung back his head and a howl out of hell was ripped from his throat.

Souta ran a hand through his tangled brown hair in agitation as Kohaku frayed his sanity. In trying to politely restrain him, Souta could not ignore the fact that he was dealing with a trained killer whose lean muscled body and accompanying feudal era weaponry made him more than just a touch nervous. Rin and the fox child Shippou were easy to deal with since they had naturally sunny dispositions and Souta could distract them with food, crayons, transformer toys and magazines. Kohaku on the other hand was far more interested in the television which he thought was some sort of living tapestry.

The miniaturized people on its screen caused Kohaku's eyes to bug out when he first saw them and Souta had to tell Kohaku to stop trying to reach his hands through the screen of the television to touch the people on the other side. Kohaku was turning away in grudging compliance when breaking news interrupted the programming and both Kohaku and Souta became glued to the television set.

Although the news reports were sketchy at best and confusing at worst, it was clear that some sort of monumental explosion had taken out chunk of the nearby commercial district. Souta and Kohaku exchanged meaningful glances.

Glances which held one word in them: Kagome

Their attentions turned back to the screen as the newsman interviewed a police chief who, while more or less admitting complete ignorance, tried to put the best spin on things by saying that police and fire fighting reinforcements were being rushed to the scene and would ascertain the truth as soon as humanly possible.

Shippou's high-pitched voice startled Souta from behind. "What's this all about?" Shippou asked, while pointing at the helicopter view of the smoking crater. "Is Kagome involved?"

Souta visibly winced at the fox child's question. Rin who was behind him, looked at him expectantly as though to say '_You're from this world. You know more about it. Now give us the answer.'_ "I hope not. But then again, she is my sister."

Shippou jumped onto a chair so he wouldn't have to look at everyone's knees and continued. "Kohaku, you're a youkai hunter-"

Before Shippou could say anything more the house reverberated and shuddered to a nearby explosion that resembled nothing so much as a monstrous thunderclap. They all stared at each other stupidly for a moment before rushing to the kitchen windows at the back of the house.

Souta, Kohaku, Rin, and Shippou had heard the sound of Wei's last attack, but had only come to the windows in time to see the feared Lord Sesshoumaru howl at the empty sky as though his soul had been ripped out of him. In the kitchen, there was a silence as complete as the stillness. There was an unspoken agreement that disturbing the blackened and ragged Lord would be anything but healthy right now. Even Rin was afraid of her lord right now and dared not go outside. They only watched in a stunned silence as he slowly entered the darkness of the well house.


	21. Across Time

Chapter 22 Across Time

Sesshoumaru felt the darkness envelope him like a somber cloak as he jumped to the bottom of the well. Closing his eyes he inhaled the lingering vanilla scent of Kagome; the only trace she had left behind in this world. Even that was fading away at what seemed to Sesshoumaru an impossible speed.

_This is it...the only thing I have of her now is her sweet smell and this moldering well. _A single tear glided down his cheek._ Never to see her, never to hear her, never to hold her again...except in memories. _

Out of nowhere, Sesshoumaru felt pain explode through his stomach, as though he had just been run through by a sword. His vision blurred and he staggered against the side of the well; his nostrils filled with the metallic scent of blood and his hands felt slick with his own liquid life as it drained out of him.

_Wait...this isn't happening to me..IT'S KAGOME ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WELL...EVEN STRETCHED ACROSS FIVE CENTURIES OUR BOND IS STILL HOLDING..._

At his back the Tensaiga pulsed insistently, demanding his attention. Gripped by an unexplainable compulsion, Sesshoumaru unsheathed the now glowing sword and plunged it deep into the earth of the well.

Power rushed out of the blade in a flood of light and spiraled down the path of the well, twisting and turning through the centuries, flowing along the chords of a transcendent bond.

Kagome felt hollow. She wanted to weep but couldn't. Her life was draining from her and all strength was leaving her. A darkness was nipping away at her consciousness, devouring thoughts in a whirring maw of nothingness. Images of Sesshoumaru drifted into her mind like leaves on the wind.

She saw him smiling at her as he held her in his arms while skating

She saw him laugh as he stole her top from her at the beach

She saw him cradle Rin lovingly as she clutched him during thunderstorms

She saw him charge through flames like a silver haired angel to save her.

_Sesshoumaru..._

Abruptly blinding light shone all around her, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut with a strength she didn't know she had. Although unsure what was happening, Kagome felt serenity wash over her. As gentle as a lover's caress, Kagome felt the Tensaiga's healing energies soothe her and begin to repair her body. Her wound knit itself close and the rending pain in her abdomen faded away to be replaced by a soft warmth that gradually spread throughout her entire being, regenerating completely the flesh and organs that had been rent asunder.

Kagome, despite being bathed in the healing energies of the Tensaiga, felt a profound fatigue overcome her. Though death had been staved off, the healing energies of the Tensaiga were forcing her body into the most efficient mode to effect repair. Before she knew it, she was enveloped in the warm arms of slumber.

As sunlight filtered through the green canopy overhead, feudal Japan bore witness to something incredible. For the first time since he came into existence, Wei laughed. What a strange feeling it was to laugh. Wei's veins felt as though elation were bubbling through them, his mind felt impossible relief; his entire essence reveled joyously in his success. He had passed through the time slip and could now seize the past and control the future.

Japan was his.


	22. A Presence Felt

Chapter 23 A Presence Felt

In the stillness of her hut, Kaede sat in meditation. Instructing Jaken to keep any village activity away from her hut, she waited in calm silence for fate to grace her with a glimpse of what was to pass. Although dwarfed by Kagome in terms of raw power, Kaede was still an experienced priestess whose power was nothing to sneer at. Her own visions, while perhaps not as direct and clear-cut as Kagome's, at times had proved enlightening.

Slipping into a deep trance, Kaede at first felt as though she were floating in the depths of a dark ocean. All she could see were limitless waves of black, so complete in their ultimate darkness they were the antithesis of light.

Then the darkness shattered.

_Fire blossomed forth as though hell itself had opened up and rained down around her. Jaws of red and orange consumed her and at once a murderous hate burned in her heart. _

_And then she saw..._

_The flames suddenly coalesced into the form of a gleaming sword that shimmered with power. Out of nowhere, a hand appeared and grasped it. A man with ebony hair and eyes filled with death and rage..._

_A dark and twisted tree burst violently from the earth and under those gnarled branches the man appeared with one other... _

_An outlander with round eyes of a sapphire hue... _

_Something exchanged hands..._

_A knowing smile lifted the corners of the outlander's mouth..._

_ The raging man held high his sword and with a slash of the silver blade the vision shifted to a scene of utter carnage._

_Thousands of men with only one face attacking...an ocean of blood staining the ground...bodies burnt and broken...children roasting alive...the smell of charred flesh in the wind... _

_Laughter..._

_Darkness enveloped her once more..._

_The silver mane of Sesshoumaru cut through the darkness and she saw him bloody and bruised on the ground...the other standing over him with his sword held high..._

Without warning, whatever forces were at work decided Kaede had seen enough and slammed her back into reality. Regaining herself, Kaede tried to rise from her sitting position only to realize she was shaking and that cold sweat poured from her brow.

Stepping out of the hut, Kaede located Jaken sitting on a barrel, shaded by the overhang provided by her hut's roof.

"Jaken," Kaede said breathlessly. "I have seen the enemy."

"And?" Jaken demanded. "What else?"

"It's starting." Kaede answered. "Whatever Kagome saw is coming to pass and it is far worse than we thought at first. Many are going to die. Hundreds. Thousands."

"Did you see if it was in this era or the other? If it is on this side of the well then Kagome is protected on the other side and all we have to do is wait for her return to warn her. If it is on the other side then Lord Sesshoumaru will protect her."

"It was unclear which side of the well he will appear on..." Kaede still had the bloodied and prostrate image of Sesshoumaru seared with burning clarity in her mind. "I don't believe your master will have easy prey with this new enemy. Whoever it is, they are frighteningly powerful."

"Whatever power they may hold," Jaken returned, "I am confident that my Lord will prevail."

"Let us hope so," Kaede said softly.

* * *

Miroku felt an ill wind blow over him and draw him from his meditations. Grasping his staff, Miroku rose and turned his eyes toward the lush green of the forest surrounding the village. Although he could not be certain, Miroku thought he could hear the lingering echoes of someone's laughter. A laughter that caused his spine to stiffen in alarm.

* * *

Standing in the shadows offered by the verdant forest around him, Wei studied a monk in purple and black robes. Creases of unease lined the monk's face and his staff was held at the ready. The monk was still for a moment longer before retreating from the far outskirts of the nearby village to its interior. Wei suspected that the monk was going to tell the village elders that a sense of foreboding had come over him and that misfortune was heading their way.

_How right you would be if you did indeed say that monk_ Wei thought as he smiled viciously before his smile turned into a frown as Wei observed the village that the monk headed towards. Much to his disappointment, he noted that the village probably only held seventy people or likely even less in it. Consumed with the idea of glorious revenge, the notion of attacking such a small, isolated, unimportant village struck him as insufficiently grand for an opening move against the Japanese. _I want something meaningful as my first victory over them a city or a town, not some pitiful mud hole...something that at least offers a challenge...and notoriety..._

Turning his back on the village, Wei wondered if his fight with Sesshoumaru had wet his appetite for greater things. He still wanted the people of the village dead, but felt they could wait.

_I need to find the oh-so-fearsome samurai and humiliate them in battle. And then rape their wives and daughters in front of them. Then perhaps bury them alive. _

_I can deal with farmers and monks later._

* * *

Although Jaken provided many benefits to the village, in Kaede's opinion, good conversation was not one of them. His irritatingly nasal voice and sour odor always made Sango's temper short when she had to deal with him. The fact that he was also a walking toad with an outrageously high opinion of his own importance certainly did not help matters.

Sitting across a knee-high table from the diminutive creature with her legs folded, Kaede let the fragrance of her tea and the purring sounds of the wind gently twisting the leaves soothe her nerves while Jaken went on about happenings in the local area. Thanks to the hunters' cadre, the lands surrounding the village were nearly empty of dangerous youkai and the only conflicts to be reported were those between far away samurai clans. The only item of information that piqued Kaede's interest were the continued sightings of Kouga who constantly asked after Kagome.

_Kouga...may heaven pity you should you run afoul of Sesshoumaru_

When she heard the distinctive jangle of Miroku's staff and the accompanying whish-whish of his robes, Kaede had to stifle a sigh of relief. Jaken wasn't really all bad, just incredibly annoying and she did not want to offend him carelessly.

Turning away from the bulbous yellow eyes of the retainer, she turned to see Miroku's normally boyish face uncharacteristically grim right now. A shadow dimmed the normally vibrant and cheery eyes and his jaw was set in a hard line.

"Kaede, I fear-"

"Wait!" Jaken squawked in interjection. "Let me guess! Is there a dark cloud overhead which requires you to take the women of the village back to the privacy of your house where you can protect them? It must be difficult to get anything done when misfortune is always heading this way."

Miroku did not even spare Jaken a glance as he knocked the youkai out of the way. "I am certain you are aware by now that being a married man I am totally faithful to Sango. It would be dangerous to be otherwise. You can also be equally certain that right now I am quite serious when I say that there is something very wrong within the forest. I don't know exactly what, but there is some kind of presence which is definitely hostile."

Kaede's expression left no doubt what she was thinking. "Kagome's vision."

"That would be my guess as well," Miroku agreed. "Lady Kaede, can you tell me where Sango is? Patrolling without her and Kirara would be difficult."

"I am sorry to say that they were called away to deal with a group of bandits."

The silence that fell between them was as oppressive as it was ominous.


	23. Wei's Opening Moves

Today I will give a shout out to the people in Germany reading this. Guten Tag!

Chapter 24 Wei's Opening Moves

"My Lord, being of a generous and patient nature will give you a chance to apologize for your insolence and answer exactly who you are and from where you hail," the nasal, condescending voice of the retainer explained. He was not in armor, instead wearing a flowing blue hitatare with a golden flower (Wei assumed it was the family crest of his lord's household) and the monk to his left wore kimono like brown robes with white underneath and a straw hat which kept his face inscrutable. Across his lap a prayer staff lay with golden rings.

The monk knew something was wrong; Wei could feel his spiritual probes trying to unsuccessfully caress him, as Wei turned his gentle but persistent inquiries aside. _You will know soon enough all that I am, just be patient a short while longer._

Behind the retainer and the monk sat the lord and on each flank half a dozen fully armed and armored samurai sat astride steeds. To the peasants of the day they probably would have presented an imposing sight. To Wei they were toys of flesh to twist and to break.

"Well I thank your lord for his charitable nature then," Wei said sneeringly. "I will tell you all that you wish to know, though it will be much to your sorrow and regret. My name is Wei Cheng and I come from the mainland. More specifically I come from Nanking to collect a debt your people owe mine." Wei grated out and allowed the monk's probes to examine him, provoking a sharp intake of breath and shudder of terror from him.

"I AM THE SCOURGE OF CHINA COME TO HOLD JAPAN TO ACCOUNT FOR ITS CRIMES AGAINST US." Wei shouted, as the atmosphere around him and the lord's entourage crackled with the strength of his hate and grew heavy and darkened as his power flooded out from him. "I AM CHINA'S VENGEANCE! I AM JAPAN'S DEATH!"

"HE IS COMPLETELY MAD MY LORD," the retainer cried over the terrified whinnying of his horse which was trying frantically to back away from Wei.

"THAT MAN IS NOT ALIVE MY LORD," the monk added over the din of stamping hooves and equine squeals "HE IS A SPECTER AND I WILL DEAL WITH HIM."

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW WRONG YOU ARE MONK!" Wei thundered "LET ME SHOW YOU THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OUR RESPECTIVE POWERS!"

Wei tightened his control over his spiritual presence, converting it from an omni directional flood to something more like a funnel with the monk caught in its mouth. Wei force-fed his power into the monk, and in a moment blood began to pour from the monks eyes, nose, and ears.

"YOU CANNOT IMAGINE JUST HOW MUCH WE HATE YOU!" Wei declared, as he continued to cram his power into the monk. A loud, wet, ripping sound ensued and the monk exploded and showered gore over the retainer, his lord and the accompanying samurai.

Wei smiled hideously and wiped away a flap of skin that had landed on his face. "Who's next?"

The next hour and a half passed much too quickly for Wei's taste, but he knew it was a truism that time flew when one has enjoying themselves.

And enjoy himself he did.

To their credit the samurai and their lord were amazingly strong willed and kept their tongues still as he twisted their bodies into grotesque shapes, charred their flesh and showed them their intestines as he slit them open. While they gritted their teeth, strangled cries did occasionally escape them, though none begged for mercy or did more than offer their defiance.

The retainer he bound and forced to watch as he went about torturing, mutilating and eventually murdering the samurai.

When at last he finished the last of them off, Wei turned to the retainer, his hands dark with blood and dripping black drops of it onto the road and grass.

"Now it's finally your turn." Wei beamed at him, speaking with a voice that was soft with ecstasy.

"What do you want from us?" the retainer stuttered "If you are truly dead then this world is not for you."

Wei, with a startling level of tenderness, placed his fingers on the man's temples, savoring the acrid smell of fear.

"Shhhhhh," Wei responded; his dark pitiless eyes bored into the retainer's. "I need to know where your lord was heading. My goals require some place defensible and I am willing to bet your lord was on his way to a fortress; his, most likely. Am I right?"

As Wei asked this he gently probed the man's mind. He was not actually telepathic, but the tortures he had forced the retainer to watch and his own fear of imminent death made his mental state ragged and easier to pick answers from.

The texture of the retainer's thoughts changed and Wei picked up the sense of going east. "I will never tell you. You may torture me for the next 10,000 years but I will never tell you."

"Oh I'm afraid it's too late for that," Wei whispered, as he placed his right thumb over the corresponding eye of the retainer and pressed inwards.

A shuddering gasp came from the man as blood poured out of his ruined eye. His mental state became more agitated and less coherent.

Wei asked, "Is it near?"

The texture of the thoughts turned black with fear and Wei knew it was. He guessed from the strength of the fear that he could reach it while the sun was still high overhead. Wei's left thumb circled over the man's remaining eye, like a hawk circling prey from overhead. The pupil of the eye in question was dilated to the maximum, so that only the smallest green of his iris could be seen.

"One last question my good man," Wei twisted the right thumb slightly causing the retainer to bite back a scream. "I noticed that you were heading east. Is that where I can find the lord's residence?"

The retainer's fear was almost palpable now and thoughts of his wife and children came to the fore.

"Thank you." Wei whispered joyfully as he sank his left thumb into the man's pupil and popped his eye. A minute spray of clear liquid erupted from the organ and landed on his lips which Wei eagerly lapped up. "You can die now."

Wei plunged both his thumbs deep into the eye sockets of the retainer and ripped his skull apart, revealing the red pulpy mass of the brain. Wei tore it out completely and crushed it between the palms of his hands.

"Well that was rewarding," Wei said to no one in particular.


	24. Enter Kouga

Author's note: To anyone in India reading this, I hope you are having a good day.

I plan from now on to update on Saturdays and Wednesdays. One chapter will be posted on each of those days as opposed to the 2 chapters Wednesday like I have been doing.

Chapter 25 Enter Kouga

A sudden gust of wind brought forth the coppery scent of human blood to fill Kouga's senses. Unlike normal human blood though, this had unmistakable power flowing through it. A power that made Kouga's nerve endings feel, as though he had been caught in a lightning storm. A power that made him worry.

Not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

"What are you thinking young prince?"

Kouga turned his cobalt blue eyes to the dull brown of eyes of an old man sitting on a three-eyed ox. Totosai, the master sword smith, actually had a fairly good guess what was on the young wolf prince's mind. Although he was old and his senses far from acute, Totosai had not failed to register what had just passed by them.

"I'm thinking that there may be something going on in my lands." Kouga answered while signaling to Ginta and Hakkaku to bring forward the next installment on what was owed. "Something that could be trouble."

Totosai's nearly bald head and improbably long neck swiveled in the direction of the west, the general path of whatever had passed them on the foul wind. "If you are thinking of confronting what passed us by, try not to get killed."

"Worried about not getting paid for your work, Totosai?" Kouga asked uncharitably. The old sword smith had high enough prices for his work that Kouga had to pay in installments rather than all at once. _But I am getting what I paid for. No doubt about that._

"Kouga, how could you think so little of me?" Totosai asked in his crotchety voice, while directing his gaze to take in Kouga's wrists and ankles. On each one of them rested a thick metal band that enhanced Kouga's power near to that of what he had possessed when he still had the jewel fragments stuck in his limbs. "I am only concerned for your welfare of course."

"And how that welfare relates to your getting paid." Ginta commented from behind Kouga, while placing the chest down on the three-eyed ox's back and securing it with ropes. Ginta then looked at Kouga and asked, "Are we really going to mess with it? Our pack is isn't-"

"Its coming to the eastern lands, our territory!" Kouga cut him off sharply. "If our pack isn't assembled we will just have to check it out on our own."

"Kouga, have you actually been into battle with my work?" Totosai asked while crossing his legs beneath him. "I told you from the beginning what you wanted was something outside the range of my usual smithing."

Totosai had confidence in his work, but Kouga's request had not been in keeping with the general line of work he performed. He was a sword smith first and foremost and not an all around metal smith in general. _Kouga should've asked for something in my range of specialization. Would've saved him a bundle._

_"_I've always been more of a hand-to-hand kind of guy, Totosai," Kouga said while smiling to himself over the unintentional rhyme. He wished silently that he could be clever like that on purpose sometimes. "So a sword really wouldn't be my thing. Got to stick to your strengths, you know?"

Kouga flashed a feral grin at Totosai as he turned to leave with his lieutenants. "Oh, and if they do break in battle, then you and I will have a lot to talk about."

_Only if you continue to draw breath Kouga, _Totosai thought to himself as the alpha wolf and his betas disappeared in clouds of dust.

* * *

Wei paused a moment to take in the heavily fortified town ahead of him. Judging from the defenses it possessed, a fair amount of wealth must have been present. No doubt the lord he killed had invested heavily in what would in time be his unassailable stronghold.

_I suppose that really makes it more of a castle town than just a town, _Wei thought while taking in the fortifications.

It was encircled by walls thirty feet high and twelve feet thick surmounted by battlements, dotted with sixteen forts at regular intervals, and wide enough to ride a horse quite easily along the top. At each of the four points of the compass, a gate provided access to the city with outer protective gates and a wooden palisade with sharpened timbers sticking out in all directions.

_This looks like just the place to kick off my private war,_ Wei thought to himself. _A place that will be a monument to pain and suffering. _

Wei summoned the Shining Hate, but paused for a moment in admiration for the way the sunlight caught on his blade, making it gleam like freshly poured silver. A moment's more consideration called to mind Lord Sesshoumaru and his own flowing mane of silver.

_A shame that I couldn't be witness to his anguish before I left, _Wei thought to himself, before giving his full attention to the town in front of him once more. All four of its gates were open right now, undoubtedly because its inhabitants did not perceive any threat to their town.

_Time to go announce myself then, _Wei thought while smiling to himself.

* * *

In the area that composed the rough middle of the Eastern Lands, Kouga knew he had found what he had been looking for. Under the loving dome of a gentle blue sky lay a burning town with flames reaching up to caress the heavens. The surrounding earth with its dark richness and knee high grasses tickled the legs and danced like playful children around him as a gentle breeze rolled over the land and carried to him the vibrant fragrance of burning flesh.

"Kouga...?" Ginta spoke beside him, wondering what actions they should take in regards to the town, which right now looked and smelled like a giant charnel house.

The sun, when glimpsed at all, was a blanched disk behind roiling smoke belched from the fires consuming the town. With his keen hearing, Kouga could hear the sounds of battle reverberating like thunder in his ears and could smell blood bathing the ground.

"Come on," Kouga said curtly before racing toward the town without further thought. Hakkaku and Ginta stared into the dark wells of each other's eyes before complying, silently communicating their unease to each other.

A hot wind scoured the faces of the trio of wolf youkai, filling their nostrils once again with the scent of crackling human flesh. Before he had met Kagome, Kouga would have found that smell comforting, appealing in fact. But somehow, without meaning to, she had changed him.

When he had stolen her from her from Inuyasha, he had been planning to just use her as a means of getting more jewel shards. Then, afterwards, perhaps have some fun with her before disposing of her.

But without even trying, Kagome had changed him, and his entire pack. Looking at her, he could do nothing less than admire her generosity, her insight, her fire, and her loyalty. Most impressive to him was her courage. He could still remember with absolute clarity her resolute defiance in the face of danger. Whether it be denying him with a slap, protecting Shippou from wolves, or piercing the hides of those damn Birds of Paradise with her arrows, she reminded him of a lioness in her vivacious spirit and unflinching determination.

After Kagome, he just couldn't look at humans the same way. And neither could his brethren. None of them could look at humans as prey any longer, not when one of them had fought side by side with them against so much.

Entering the gate, which looked as though it had been to hell and back, Kouga spied a lone human male sitting with his back to the wolf youkai by the edge of a large reflecting pool.

A pool whose waters were a dark shade of pink.

Even though his back was turned, Kouga and his betas could see that the man was eating something, judging from the regular movements of a set of chopsticks in his right hands. For one of the very few moments in his life, Kouga hesitated as a feeling of unreality set in on him. The one in front of him looked perfectly human and was seemingly just eating a simple meal.

A simple meal in the midst of a ruined town whose dwellings still sputtered flame and whose paved interior had dark stains covering it. A simple meal in a town that was permeated with the smells of fear and death. A simple meal in the midst of a scene of carnage.


	25. A Bloody Encounter

Author's note: Today I will say hello to any Korean Americans who might be reading this. 안녕하세요 As of yet I don't have any readers in South Korea but perhaps someday they will visit.

Chapter 26 A Bloody Encounter

Wei knew the youkai were there.

He had sensed them coming from a far. Since he was through with most of the castle town's inhabitants-he had special plans for the survivors, especially the women,- Wei had decided to shift his attention to the oncoming youkai. Wei used his most recently created bodies to clean up the area around the entrance on the side the youkai had been approaching and arrange it to his liking.

"It's a lovely day, don't you think?" Wei asked without turning around doing his best to keep mirth out of his voice.

With deliberate nonchalance, Wei turned his face partially toward his audience. Although he could not be totally certain, Wei believed that his audience consisted of three wolf type youkai, judging by the brown pelts they wore and their long bushy tails at least. All three of them wore armor across their midsections, but little else in the way of protection which suggested that they were more concerned with speed and maneuverability than defense.

Wei assumed the two at the rear were the lackeys of the one in front. Both of the lackeys had wiry builds and had the look of dimwits about them. The one on the right had his head shaved bald except for a Mohawk of gray hair and wore turquoise metal armor with straps above the shoulders. The other lackey had gray hair with a thick black stripe running through the middle and wore crimson armor of the same style.

The one whom he assumed was the leader stood three paces in front of the other two. His ice blue eyes were in exceptional contrast to his ebon mane of hair that was so dark it almost glistened. Like the other two, his wiry frame had a single piece of black armor over the chest. However, unlike the other two, Wei noticed that the leader was also wearing some very ornate black metal bands on his wrists and ankles, which fairly sang with power. On each of the bands, Wei could make out symbols etched with barbs and glyphs that seemed to be filled with liquid diamond that scintillated in light cast by the fires and the sun.

_Hmm...wonder what those do..._

Calmly, Wei turned around fully to face the sheep that thought they were wolves.

* * *

As the one at the reflecting pool turned around, Kouga heard a sharp intake of breath behind him from Ginta and had to repress a grimace himself.

_This guy is seriously messed up..._

When the man turned around, Kouga had been afforded a full view of what he had in his hands. In one hand was a set of wooden chopsticks, in his other hand was the severed head of a boy who could be no more than eleven and was having his head used as a rice bowl. The entire skull cap of the boy had been removed and judging from the expression on his face, it had been done while he was still alive. The dark eyes pleaded for mercy and the mouth was frozen in a silent scream.

"Yes, a lovely day indeed," the man reiterated, while lifting a mouthful of rice that had been stained with blood. "A perfect day for a celebration. And in keeping with the customs of the locals, I have made my own festive red rice." The man held the skull up towards Kouga. "Perhaps you would like some?"

When he got a clear look at the man, Kouga had to wonder where he came from. In contrast to the oval facial features of most of the humans he had met, this man's facial features had harsh square lines making them up and gave the impression that he had been carved from stone. He was also fairly large and brawny compared to the average Japanese person and there was also a slight accent discernible in his voice.

The man's clothing was unlike anything he had ever seen before, with strange brown pants, a black shirt with buttons that had been opened and allowed a grey under shirt to be seen. On his feet were something akin to boots that had been cut down to the ankles and had odd black strings crisscrossing back and forth over the arch of the foot.

"Kouga..." Hakkaku whimpered, as the sounds of movement surrounded them. A stunned silence fell over the trio of wolves as the area around them was suddenly flooded with thousands of people.

Actually though, it was just one person. The same person that was sitting at the reflecting pool eating rice out of a kid's skull. Every face had the same exact malevolent smile, the same sadistic eyes, the same expression of sinister amusement. The only difference he could see was that the others all wore the normal style of clothing that Kouga expected from humans. But even that was disturbing because it was exceedingly apparent from the scents coming from the clothing and the way the clothes fit over the bodies that they had been taken by force.

_It is time to put Totosai's work to the test, _Kouga thought to himself.

"I don't know who you are or where you came from," Kouga growled. "But if you think you can run wild across these lands, you're dead wrong."

"Dead wrong you say?" The man at the reflecting pool asked while standing up. "What an interesting choice of words."


	26. Kouga vs Wei

Author's note: For those who are unaware, the fan art being used for the cover of this story is posted on dokuga and on that site it is larger and looks better. Additionally Dokuga will be where other fan art that I have commissioned for this story will be posted. I go by SonofZhon there also.

Today I will welcome the person in Taiwan who started reading this recently. Hello, I hope you are having a good day.

I know I've said hello to various nationalities in the past but I never get a hello back. Are you all shy?

Chapter 27 Kouga vs Wei

As the challenge was answered, it became evident that it was going to be a one on one duel between Kouga and what he believed was the most powerful of the creatures. He didn't know exactly what the relationship between that one and those copies was, but Kouga got the impression that they were all just one entity spread out into bodies of varying power levels.

In a showing of obvious contempt, the one facing him left the sword that had been resting by his side where it lay and took up a preparatory stance, while signaling Kouga with a one-handed gesture to "come and get it."

Kouga, infuriated by the condescension displayed by this outsider, charged without a second thought.

Wei was deeply amused by the inept attacks of the wolf youkai named Kouga. His method relied on raw power rather than technique and was so sloppy Wei could anticipate the attacks long before their arrival.

Only those strange bracelets which hummed with power allowed Kouga to be much of a challenge to Wei and just barely at that. Kouga's first punch came in high, a right hand hooking down to the left. Wei easily stepped away from it, then leaned in, grabbed the edge of his armor and sent him to the ground. Kouga rolled on his shoulder and came back up, spinning fast to face Wei with his arms ready to pick off any punch or kick thrown at him.

Kouga narrowed his eyes at Wei and then attacked again, leading with a right-handed punch that turned out to be a feint. In going for the block, Wei exposed the left side of his torso and Kouga tried to deliver a roundhouse kick, but Wei realized the trap and stepped in close, jamming the kick before it could reach full extension. In an instant, Wei had a surprised Kouga's extended leg pinned to him, caught between Wei's side and his arm.

A white haze of pain exploded in Kouga's head as an open palm attack from Wei smashed his nose into a bloody mess of cartilage and viscera. Wei then tried to follow up on Kouga's disorientation by aiming a blow with his right heel to Kouga's left knee cap.

Unexpectedly, the wolf prince used his free leg to pull a desperate maneuver; jumping up off of it, he twisted in the air and slammed the arch of his left foot into Wei's jaw with a sound like that of a firearm's report at close range. Continuing the twist, Kouga got enough leverage to kick his right leg free of Wei.

Springing up to the attack once more, Kouga was knocked back down again by the eagle clawed hand of Wei crushing his larynx. Wei smiled down on the wolf prince as Kouga's eyes bulged from his head and his clawed hands went to his throat in a futile attempt to breathe.

'Oh, is the big bad wolf short of breath?' Wei sneered before delivering a roundhouse kick to Kouga's temple as he tried to get back up. Wei looked deep into Kouga's cobalt blue eyes, as Kouga lay on his back, savoring the expression of disbelief in them. Those crystal blue eyes seemed to say, _This is how it ends? I knew I was going to die in battle, but like this? With just the sound of me hacking trying to get air? I was supposed to die gloriously, not with my back in the dirt clawing at my throat helplessly._

As Kouga's face became an intensely dark hue of purple, Wei turned to the shaking forms of Ginta and Hakkaku. "That wasn't as satisfying as I would have liked in all honesty. Died too fast and just wasn't the challenge Sesshoumaru was-"

Ginta and Hakkaku didn't know when this monster had encountered Sesshoumaru, but if Sesshoumaru hadn't been able to defeat him they didn't have any hope.

"-and not nearly as satisfying to kill. But since he and you are Japanese..."


	27. Dubious Mercy

Chapter 28 Dubious Mercy

"WAIT!" a voice cried out and Hakkaku and Ginta dared to hope they had been given a reprieve from the executioner's blade.

The creature and its copies turned their attention towards a man, an actual human, who was nervously pushing his way to the front. He appeared to be wealthy as far as humans go, his kimono was a dark blue with a lighter watery pattern printed on it and made of silk.

"Dongsaeng, my brother in suffering," the creature in the shape of a man said in a genuinely friendly voice, which struck the wolves as bizarre considering his evident cruelty. "My generosity does have its limits you know."

"Yes of course," the man answered with evident fear in his voice. He addressed the creature dressed in the strange clothing and ignored the others crowding around him. "You do yourself a disservice though in killing those two."

"How so?"

Ginta noticed the man had an accent to his words also but heavier and of a different flavor as he continued, "Did you not tell me earlier you chose this town because of an encounter with a lord? An encounter that was brought about by chance? You wanted a place with many Japanese did you not? Does killing these two seem as though it will provide you the entertainment, the satisfaction, you desire?"

"Well..."

"Spare yourself the trouble of randomly coming across such places. These are clearly wolf youkai and must have a pack. Allow them to leave and they will bring their pack after you, thus saving you the trouble of hunting them down." The human's brown eyes sought out theirs and passed both a silent promise and a plea to them. _I will be waiting for you, bring more and end this madness._

The human then turned his eyes to his murderous companion, "They must and will bring their pack to avenge their leader."

"Yes..." Ginta breathed. This human was smart; he was not only saving them he was arranging the possible downfall of this false-human. "We will."

The creature turned his attention towards Ginta and Hakkaku again; its hungry eyes seemed to weigh them in the scales of its deranged mind, trying to decide whether the desire for blood was best met now or later.

Ultimately though, the desire for a greater bloodletting won out. The man that was not a man gestured contemptuously toward the glassy eyed Kouga. "Go then and bring me more to kill. Take your leader with you if it will stir your pack's blood and inspire the need for vengeance."

The creature and all its pseudo twins, in an obvious gesture of contempt, mockingly bowed and gestured towards the door. 

"Hey," Hakkaku called out as he and Ginta made for the gate with Kouga's body. "How will we find you?"

A copy wearing samurai armor turned and flashed a knife like smile at the wolves. "Just follow the trail of corpses."

* * *

Hakkaku was smiling and that angered and confused Ginta enormously.

Kouga, their prince and friend since early childhood was dead. Kouga had always possessed an aura of invincibility, the sort of dynamic presence that electrified their pack and gave them the feeling that he would always be around; a rock steady source of leadership. But today that rock had been shattered into dust and their clan was left leaderless.

And yet somehow Hakkaku found something to smile about.

"What are we going to do now?" Ginta asked Hakkaku through gritted teeth as they carried the body of Kouga away from his place of death. Ginta very much wanted to grieve for Kouga, but somehow the death of their leader just seemed unreal.

Even if it was his literally dead weight they were carrying.

Ginta just kept expecting Kouga to cuff them both on the side of the head and shout something like, "Let me down you dimwits; I'm not dead!"

Ginta would have happily endured any amount of physical abuse if it meant Kouga would be alive once more.

Of course that couldn't happen now, but something far worse just might. If they went straight back to the pack and announced Kouga's death, even during the period of ritual mourning their clan mates would start jockeying for positions of power. A succession dispute and perhaps even an outright war would occur because Kouga and Ayame did not yet have an heir who could take on the mantle of leadership. All the wolf tribes Kouga had joined as one could very easily fragment as old lines of division asserted themselves once more.

Hakkaku must have known this and yet still that damned smile was on his face, as though the world and everything in it was just peachy.

"We're going to Kagome's village." Hakkaku announced with a gleam in his eye. Very rarely in his life did inspiration hit Hakkaku, but when it did it always felt as though a star had exploded in his mind. Right now, the way to stop an internal war in his pack and save his leader was filling his mind like a red giant.

"What? Why?" Ginta asked suspiciously. "What are you thinking?"

"Sesshoumaru's tomb is there and so is Jaken right?" Hakkaku asked. Kouga had never been all that talkative about Kagome's village or his visits there but word got around regardless.

"The Tensaiga is what we need and Jaken is who we need to see about it."

Ginta looked at his long time friend realizing the implications of his words almost immediately. The legendary nature of the Tensaiga as a life-restoring sword was well known but there was a serious question of whether they could actually use it.

_ Guess we will find out soon enough, _Ginta thought to himself.


	28. Regrouping

Chapter 29 Regrouping

In the depths of the bone eater's well, Sesshoumaru hunched over the Tensaiga, directing its life giving energies across the centuries to Kagome. Although rills of sweat poured from his brow and stained his shirt, he did not welcome the cool darkness of the well. It actually provoked an irrational fear that silently crept out from the dark corners of his mind; the fear that Kagome would be lost in the coffin like confines of the well set 500 years in the past.

He kept seeing himself collapsing in exhaustion and Kagome's wounds ripping open and bleeding out in crimson torrents.

_No._

He could see her whispering his name as her heart gave one last beat and the darkness embraced her completely.

_Stop it damnit!_

Sesshoumaru forced himself to stop his self-torture with despair inducing visions and considered Wei.

Self-confidence had never been an issue for Sesshoumaru, yet Wei gave him pause. Wei had, if not defeated him outright, out maneuvered him with apparent ease and seemingly without using the full extent of his power.

_He also got hit by a train full on and came back for more. _

When he did face Wei again, and Sesshoumaru was certain he would, he was at a loss for how to kill him.

_There is also his sword, the Shining Hate._

Sesshoumaru felt certain he had received only a small taste of the devastation that sword could wreak; the explosion on the subway platform that erupted as he pursued the Wei with Kagome was impossible to miss.

Beyond that and perhaps more disturbing was the mimic body he had fought and which was clearly an extension of Wei. Either it was being controlled with ease like a puppet or it acted independently and Wei had nary a fear about rebellion. Even Naraku, famed as he was for creating 'children' did so with caution. Even then control was a serious issue, especially with Kanna's sister Kagura and her brothers Juuromaru and Kageroumaru. For Wei to be able to create others and control them flawlessly was deeply worrisome.

_If this Wei is like Naraku, and can create incarnations of himself, it may be that like Naraku he has only one weak point. Something like a heart that has to be destroyed to crush him... _

_His incarnations though, they keep forming and reforming...pulverizing one with a train was merely inconvenient. There was not so much as a hint of fear in the face of any threat...Naraku always used his incarnations as a shield to protect himself and his heart...If Wei has a trail that can be traced to his origin...the means to his destruction may lie there. _

Sesshoumaru's thoughts shifted to the brief conversation he'd held with Wei. Clearly Wei knew of the well and had set as his goal rewriting history by exterminating the Japanese.

_What is he exactly? Why does he hate us with such intensity?_

Like all Japanese, Sesshoumaru knew a large amount of the bitterness that persisted between China and Japan was a result of his country's invasion of China decades ago.

_Wei looks like he is in his twenties...although considering how I look that doesn't mean anything...Is he just some sort of insane Chinese nationalist..._

Sesshoumaru went over the brief snippets of conversation he and Wei had again and again, but could not find any meaningful clues to answer the questions surrounding Wei. The only thing that he knew for certain was that time was slipping away from him while Wei pursued his genocidal dreams.

* * *

_It must be my lucky day,_ Wei thought as thousands of his bodies crowded into a dark cave rife with the smell of decomposition and filled with the scattered remains of youkai. One in particular, was quite impressive.

_While many monks and priests were able to kill youkai, only one woman, a priestess, was able to bring balance to the souls of the youkai and thus nullify them completely_...

The dark scales of its mammoth coils stretched throughout the cavern, frozen motionless in bluish crystal while in the process of trying to devour a woman

_The youkai hated and feared her, and so they resolved to create a monster so massive and so evil that it would be almost impossible to purify..._

One of Wei's bodies looked into the horrified and shame filled eyes of a man, an actual human_, _who seemed to be fused at the molecular level with the beast.

_Unknown to the priestess Midoriko, a local villager had fallen in love with her. The youkai snuck into a crevice in his heart, and using him as a crucible, combined to form a truly abominable creature..._

In the dim light of the cavern, one of the Weis studied a fist-sized hole in the armored torso of the priestess.

_For 7 days and 7 nights the priestess and the youkai did battle. When at last the youkai was within reach of triumph over Midoriko and was about to consume her, she used the last of her strength to absorb the youkai's soul into her own and expelled both from her body in the form of the Shikon no Tama..._

Wei stared at the silently screaming priestess, frozen for decades in crystal while in the midst of being eaten by a youkai without equal. A youkai whose body was nothing more than a hollow shell now because the most critical component, the soul, was missing. For all the tentacles, claws, and multiple fang-filled heads, it might as well have been nothing but an oversized paperweight for its spiritual void.

_ I, of course, can fill that emptiness..._

The normally silent confines of the cavern suddenly became filled with wet sloshing sounds as Wei broke the forms of thousands of his bodies and forced them down the throat of the soulless youkai in a torrent of red.

A moment of perfect and ominous silence passed...and then another...

Then a tremendous crashing sound was heard, as though a mountain of glass had been shattered by the sledgehammer of an angry god as Wei flexed the beast's muscles and broke free from its imprisonment.

The earth shuddered and the cavern groaned like a massive vault unwillingly being forced open. Cracks and fissures split the mountainside in which the cave had been formed and sent animals scurrying every which way to find safety.

Then the mountainside exploded outward in a colossal booming of boulders, trees, and confused animals and rained earth everywhere. Adjusting to the senses of his newly acquired body, Wei paused for a moment, trying to not be overwhelmed by a body that seemed as awkward to him as a bicycle would be to a fish.

_This is going to take some adjustment, _Wei thought to himself as he tried to measure the responses of the alien body to his command. As his will and power flooded through the monster born from an impossible love, the muscles twisted and bunched as Wei tried to make sense of the confusing labyrinth of bones, blood, and flesh. Restoring a life to the creature was an exhausting process of learning. Each time he sent a command down and through the beast's nerves, some portion would twitch and spasm as though struck by an electrical shock. Until he could figure out how to manipulate the beast properly, all Wei could do was invoke seemingly mindless thrashing from it and send tremors resonating through the ground as he moved.

After nearly an hour of slamming the ground with ungodly force from the ungodly creature, Wei gained enough experience from his efforts that he was able to bring a semblance of order to the amalgam from hell and control it sufficiently to send it slithering to the east. Wei felt certain that a beast of this power would be able to fly, but was not immediately able to figure out how to get it to do so.

_The hell with it, the ground will be good enough for now _Wei conceded in temporary defeat as he propelled himself along on the creature's underside as a serpent would.

_I will master this thing though, _Wei vowed solemnly to himself.

* * *

For Kagome, thousands of years seemed to pass before she opened her eyes again. In that millennial sleep, she spent thousands of years dreaming alternatively of angels cast in moonlight and blades forged in blood. For a millennium, she was bound in those dreams, unable to speak, to move, to see or to hear.

Then a muscle twitched in her back. It took a century to isolate that muscle and make it contract again and then expand. As the decades grew into another century, Kagome gradually became aware of the surrounding muscles and began to manipulate them as well. The chrysalis of sleep in which Kagome had retreated began to rip and tear as she clenched her thigh and arm muscles. With a surge of effort she broke free of her imprisoning sleep and opened her gentle brown eyes to the waking world.

A world that was now a nightmare. A world in which a super powered psychopath was on the loose five hundred years in the past and was doing who-knew-what to the delicate threads of history.

_Got to stop him..._

Forcing action from her lethargic muscles, Kagome hooked one barely responsive hand after another on the ropeway out of the well and into the daylight.


	29. Death and Life

Chapter 30 Death and Life

Kouga's unseeing and bloodshot eyes stared up into the crystal blue sky and the glorious golden sun that rolled lazily across it. The same sun, which had stared down at his father and his father's father and so on back for countless generations. A sun that Kouga, as a young cub, imagined to be a heartless God who did not care what happened to anyone as it sailed its celestial voyage across the heavens in a blazing chariot. Never once had it stopped or even slowed during its everlasting travels from the sky's east to its west. It didn't matter whether Kouga was laughing or crying, living or dying, nothing could convince the everlasting Sun, the Golden God of the skies, to alter its blazing course.

It was a Golden God that stared down at his corpse even now as it leisurely passed by without a second thought. The harsh and heated gaze it cast upon the land was like a constant reminder during the day of how totally unsympathetic it was to the mortal toil.

Similarly, the golden orbs of Sesshoumaru Ryusaki stared unsympathetically at the purplish face of Kouga, now frozen in an expression of silent torment by the effects of rigor mortis. Sesshoumaru had always believed the wolf prince to be an overconfident and impulsive idiot and felt a certain sense of satisfaction in seeing Kouga dead at his feet.

Practically right after being retrieved by Kagome and entering into the feudal era to pursue Wei, Sesshoumaru made out the vociferous sounds of dispute between Hakkaku, Ginta and Jaken in the village. Upon confronting the wolf youkai, he learned of Kouga's death and was less than pleased to discover their interest in acquiring -stealing as Sesshoumaru named it- the Tensaiga for the purpose resurrecting Kouga.

Kagome, of course, had a more forgiving disposition than he did.

_How fortunate for them_ Sesshoumaru thought to himself irritably.

From inside Kaede's dwelling, he could feel her silent urging flooding through his mind through their link, demanding that the Tensaiga be used on Kouga to restore his life. Not that it was unexpected, really. Undoubtedly that part of her, the part that was so generous and compassionate was what made her so special to him. That was the part that had melted the ice from his heart and made his life actually worth living.

Nonetheless he could not just resurrect Kouga out of generosity or for Kagome's pleasure. That might convince the Hakkaku and Ginta that he was somehow tenderhearted and that was the last impression he wanted to cultivate in front of these wolves. No, a practical reason had to be found for Kouga's resurrection, which would avoid any belief that there was a possible weakness in his character to be exploited. That was the main reason he had asked her to let him conduct business with the wolves privately.

Facing Hakkaku with an expression of contempt Sesshoumaru, asked in a detached voice, "What reason would I have for resurrecting Kouga exactly?"

Ginta, racking his brains, was the first to try to come up with a compelling reason for which to revive their lord.

Hakkaku then weighed his words carefully. "If having him in your debt for resurrection is not reason enough, perhaps the fact the he was killed by the one who had Kagome's blood on him. You're looking to find him right? If you revive Kouga, we'll tell you what we know about him. We also know where to get some more information besides."

Hakkaku knew he was stretching the truth a little with that last part, but was willing to risk anything for Kouga.

Sesshoumaru gave Hakkaku a cool appraising look, "His name is Wei Cheng and that is worth using the Tensaiga."

In a flash of violet light, Kouga's body became engulfed in the radiant energies of the Tensaiga and life flowed through his veins once more. Kouga sat up almost immediately and began hacking and clawing at his throat as though he were still choking. Sesshoumaru knew, however, that he was just reliving the last moments of his death and he would realize that he could breathe again very shortly.

Once Kouga became aware that his throat was no longer crushed and stopped clawing at it, Sesshoumaru hauled him up by the scruff off his neck and pushed him into Ginta and Hakkaku's arms. Still disoriented, Kouga looked wide-eyed at his savior with a mixture of horror and bewilderment.

"Sesshoumaru..."

_I think death may have been better..._

"Obviously," Sesshoumaru commented acidly. As Kouga took in the Youkai Lord, he noticed that instead of his usual silver and white silken wardrobe, Seshoumaru instead wore an attire that seemed similar to that of his executioner. Only the shirt, instead of black, was colored royal purple with a white undershirt beneath it.

Kouga's keen nose detected the smell of burned linens though, so he guessed Sesshoumaru recently run afoul of the maniac as well.

_Bet Jaken has a spare wardrobe lying around just in case Sesshoumaru isn't looking his best, _Kouga silently reflected. _Pretty boy._

Kouga was not certain if the subject of his thoughts was somehow detected by Sesshoumaru, but his golden eyes suddenly blazed dangerously and focused an annihilating gaze on him. "Your resurrection was part of a bargain struck with your beta wolves. I expect that bargain to be fulfilled."


	30. Alive Again

Chapter 31 Alive Again

Kouga glared at his subordinates with his piercing blue eyes. Both Hakkaku and Ginta began mumbling unintelligibly; it was **not** their place to negotiate with another on behalf of Kouga. Even if it was with his best interests in mind.

"What did you promise him?"

"What they promised," Sesshoumaru interrupted the brewing fight between the alpha wolf and his betas, "is to provide me with information concerning the movements of your killer, Wei Cheng."

Kouga stared at his subordinates questioningly, not quite willing to admit his own desire to know. "Well? Once a pact is made it should be followed through, with so spit it out already. What do you know?"

"Wei told us he would be waiting for us to bring out our pack to face him again. He was heading east when we last saw him." Hakkaku continued hesitantly. "He told us that he didn't find his fight with you satisfying and that we were to bring him more to kill."

Kouga felt the blood rise in his veins as he had been insulted personally and the entire pack threatened. Now honor demanded that the challenge be answered.

"There is more though," Hakkaku continued. "Wei spared one of the men. He was a foreigner and spoke our language with an accent. Wei called him his 'dongseang' and his 'brother in suffering,' I think he is waiting for us to return so he can tell us whatever he knows."

"Dongseang?" Kouga repeated questioningly.

"Its Korean," Sesshoumaru answered while some additional puzzle pieces fit together in his mind. He knew Japan had annexed Korea around 1910 and used it as a launching point for invading China and Wei must have seen Koreans as kindred spirits; brothers in suffering. "Wei was saying something like 'little brother' when he used it."

Turning to the reincarnated Sesshoumaru, Kouga paused for a moment. He knew events were moving fast and they needed to go after Wei, but he also needed answers on what he was caught up in.

Questions swirled around in his mind, particularly as they pertained to Kagome and the former Lord of the Western Lands. He had refused to believe that Sesshoumaru had returned from the grave and was Kagome's lover but now, when confronted with the indisputable reality, one in which Sesshoumaru's and Kagome's scents were intermingled, he felt a profound sense of loss.

Kouga wasn't sure exactly what he wanted from Kagome. He had already married Ayame and he was fairly certain that Kagome would never accept being a concubine. She seemed to have too much spirit and class to accept such a role, even if he had given up his jewel shards for her. And he knew Sesshoumaru sure as hell wouldn't allow that. Nonetheless, Kouga felt that he needed something from her that he couldn't quite put into words. There was just some sense that things between them were unfinished and he had to talk with her to bring to an end the feelings of incompletion plaguing him.

Kouga also felt something like a fool because undoubtedly Sesshoumaru knew of his clumsy attempts to contact Kagome and would be less than pleased by them.

_Those things and the questions about them will just have to wait...It's all about Wei now._

"So then," Kouga began. "You seem to know something about this 'Wei' guy. What is he and what's his deal?"

Sesshoumaru regarded silently Kouga for a moment, not certain how much to reveal about Wei and thus himself. "Wei's goal, it would seem, is to erase Japan from this world."

_World. _That single word echoed in Kouga's mind and with each reverberation gained greater meaning...

Something clicked unexpectedly in Kouga's mind about Wei's attire from his last memory as he lay dying. Kagome had always dressed strangely, with clothing that had bizarre writing on it and was unlike anything he had ever seen. Wei had also been wearing strange clothing that didn't match anything he had ever seen before. Except, perhaps, Kagome's...and now Sesshoumaru's.

_In a way, Kagome's clothing and Wei's had a certain similarity to them...She is supposed to be from another world...and Wei..._

"Wei is from Kagome's world isn't he?" Kouga exclaimed suddenly, proud of his rare feat of insight. "That's why he had her blood on him! I keep hearing how a person needs to use the Shikon no Tama to get back and forth between her world and this one and she's the guardian of it! She was used by him to get here wasn't she? And that's why you're after him, isn't it? He kidnapped her from you!"

Sesshoumaru made no answer but to Kouga that was as good as an affirmative. Then another thought struck Kouga and caused his narrow line of ice to form down his spine. _If Wei was powerful enough to steal Kagome from Sesshoumaru, then it's no wonder I lost to him...and it means I won't be able to take him on him by myself..._

Kouga didn't relish what had to be done next, but if he was to try and make Sesshoumaru an ally against Wei, then certain matters had to be cleared up. Otherwise they would just be a nuisance, hindering any possible cooperation between them.

Taking a deep breath Kouga asked, "Sesshoumaru, mind if I talk with Kagome?"


	31. Past and Present

Chapter 32 Past and Present

Through their connection, Kagome could feel that her boyfriend was intensely displeased by something, but she was unable to discern the exact reasons for it. Sitting in Kaede's hut, she had conceded to Sesshoumaru that some business was best left between youkai. Shortly after retrieving Sesshoumaru from the future, (where they both agreed it was safer to leave Shippou, Rin, and Kohaku) he had informed her that he could hear Jaken bickering loudly with someone and it involved Kouga.

The obvious implications of this had pleased neither of them, but Kagome agreed that it might be best if Sesshoumaru handled the matter privately. If Kouga thought that he could treat her the same way that he had in the past, he was in for a rude awakening. Possibly a fatal one. Although the Sesshoumaru of the modern era was not quite the same as Sesshoumaru of the feudal era, Kagome had little doubt that her boyfriend would end the life of anyone who tried to take liberties with her.

It was for that reason she was silently praying that Kouga wasn't stupid enough to enrage Sesshoumaru. She was fairly certain that no amount of pleading would save Kouga in that case.

Although reluctant to do nothing in the present situation, Kagome forced herself to remain silent as the drama between the youkai played itself out.

She was still thinking what could possibly be going on out there when the door to Kaede's hut squeaked open and Sesshoumaru entered.

"Kagome, Sango, Miroku," he began in an irritated voice. "We would appreciate your presence outside."

* * *

Souta was more than a little disturbed by recent events. As the news continued to report on what had occurred at the commercial district earlier, he found himself more unnerved rather than less that he had some clue of what was going on. The authorities were still utterly clueless as to what had happened and could only say that they were working on finding evidence for what caused the explosion.

Souta and his most recent companions knew what, or more accurately who, was behind it though. Of course, they weren't about to tell anyone. There wasn't a chance in hell that the news would accept or report that a crazed Chinese guy with inhuman power was trying to mess with time and most likely erase Japan from existence.

There had been a point in time where Souta would have thought it would be cool to be caught up in the adventures that his sister had.

That time had come and gone.

Now he desperately wished that the stupid well hadn't been reactivated and was more than a little envious of the people who had no clue that their lives were hanging in the balance. The only things between them and a rewritten history were his sister, her boyfriend, and whatever allies they could find in the past.

"The waiting and not knowing is maddening, isn't it?" Kohaku suddenly asked from behind Souta, startling him out of his reverie.

Turning around to face the boy, Souta for a moment had the impression he was talking to someone much older than fifteen. Kohaku's eyes seemed to have the kind of look his mother's eyes did. The look that said she had seen more in her life than she had wanted to remember.

"It's just that I'm used to things on the other side of the well being the source of a problem," Souta answered. "My sister has told me that there are youkai in this time too but nothing ever seemed to go wrong for it. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, pops up this Wei guy, damn near killing my sister and going back in time to do rearrange the present to his liking."

"So you believe your sister then? About what Wei wants?" Kohaku asked.

"Well, he sure isn't going back there just for sightseeing," Souta answered. "And from what Sess-"

"Sesshoumaru," Kohaku interrupted.

"From what Sesshoumaru said," Souta continued. "Wei doesn't seem to have the best interest of Japan at heart. By the way, why aren't Rin and Shippou with you?"

Kohaku sighed slightly. "They're in the kitchen. They decided that since they couldn't really do anything, and since they might be gone any instant, they were going to eat as much ice cream and other foods as possible."

"Well, aren't they just little paragons of virtue?" Souta said sarcastically.

Kohaku's face darkened. "Would you prefer they sit here in front of the 'TV,' brooding silently and accomplishing essentially nothing?"

"All our lives could be snuffed out in an instant," Souta hissed "and they're only stuffing their faces. It's like they don't care."

"From the moment we were born our lives have been in the shadow of death. Wei hasn't changed that," Kohaku returned. "Take it from someone who's been dead once; enjoy whatever you can out of life. Otherwise, you're just wasting time."

Not having a good response, Souta turned back to the TV and the reporter on it. Suddenly the scene on the TV seemed to ripple as though it were being submerged beneath an invisible wave. The reporter in front of the camera was abruptly cut off mid-sentence as the channel filled with a snowstorm of static and blaring white noise. Grabbing the remote, Souta turned to another channel only to be greeted by the same static and white noise. Trying several more channels yielded the same result.

Souta turned off the TV. "It seems we are experiencing some difficulties."

Kohaku nodded in silent affirmation, but continued to look at the TV intently. Souta had a pretty good guess as to why. Although it had been in only the glimmering of a moment, Souta had seen the reporter's eyes widen in surprise before the signal was lost.

Or perhaps it was fear.


	32. Going to War

Chapter 33 Going to War

"So," Kagome started in what she hoped was a nonchalant voice "I hear you wanted to speak with me?"

"Kagome," Kouga said sweetly and moved closer to take Kagome's hands in his own, but stopped when the smell of Sesshoumaru's corrosive venom reached his nostrils. It was clearly Sesshoumaru's silent way of warning him to keep his distance or have his hands melted off. Stopping at meter in front of her and keeping his hands at his side, Kouga chose his words carefully and continued "I've been wanting to see you for the longest time."

Kagome forced a pleasant expression to remain on her face. "Yes, I heard that you had been dropping by the village occasionally to ask about me. I also heard that you recently got married."

Kouga winced slightly as the underlying message got through to him: _You're married and you had better act like a good husband if you want to keep me as a friend. _

"Yes," Kouga affirmed "To Ayame."

"You've married Ayame?" Kagome asked Kouga. Inwardly, she was rather surprised. She had come under the impression that Kouga was not all that fond of the red haired wolf princess. On the other hand, perhaps she was one of those highly annoying people that grew on you inexplicably.

Much like her brother, Souta.

Kouga sighed somewhat regretfully. "I did make her a promise after all."

_I did make her a promise after all..._Those words echoed in Kagome's mind, provoking a dull ache in her heart. _Just as Inuyasha made to Kikyou..._

Although Kagome liked to think she was past Inuyasha, she sometimes felt a profound sorrow overcome her when someone spoke of an obligation in the same way her first love spoke of his to Kikyou. It wasn't that she was still in love with Inuyasha, not like she was with Sesshoumaru, but just a reminder of the kind of ruin such promises could bring made black threads of despondency lace around her heart.

"It was probably for the best," Kouga continued. "If I had made you my wife-"

A warning growl emanated from the throat of a certain inuyoukai.

"Not that I would do so now," Kouga hastily added. "But if I had, though, our children would most likely have had very unpleasant lives." Kouga deliberately avoided using the term half-breed in deference to Sesshoumaru's sensibilities. "And I might have lost the leadership of the pack also. So it was probably best for everyone that I married another wolf like Ayame."

Although Kouga did his best to sound as though he were satisfied with the way things turned out, it was clear that he was not really. Kagome had to remind herself that in the feudal era people married out of duty to their ancestors first. Providing a male heir was considered the primary goal of this era's marriages, so as to carry on the lineage and not commit a sin against one's forbearers. If a couple was lucky, they would fall in love after the marriage. But even if they hated each other, the concept of divorce was anathema and not to be considered.

"Kagome," Kouga said, deciding that he had cleared away any suspicions about his intentions. "I would like to spend more time catching up and all, but it will just have to wait until after Wei is dealt with. And am I right in thinking that Wei came from your world? His clothes kinda reminded me of yours."

Kagome's smile froze on her face and then gradually disappeared like the sun disappearing behind the horizon. In her own time, the idea of a magical well that could transport people back and forth across five centuries of time would sound absurd. But here in the feudal era, it probably wouldn't sound as outrageous. Phenomenal and bizarre, yes, but not enough to make her sound insane. Besides, Kouga wouldn't doubt her. She had never given him reason to distrust her.

"Kouga," Kagome started hesitantly, "I don't come from a different world. I come from a different era. The same era that Wei comes from, 500 years in the future. The well that is nearby is the portal I use to go between times."

Kouga looked at Kagome stupidly for a second, then with amazing eloquence said, "Oh."

Kagome continued more confidently. "We don't know much about Wei, except that he's Chinese and seems to hate all Japanese."

While Kouga had never met any of the people from across the waters, he had heard about them from time to time. They supposedly believed they were the height of sophistication and elegance and considered their kingdom to be at the center of the world. However, he couldn't imagine why one of them would harbor such hatred toward his homeland that he would seek to wipe it out.

Kagome pressed on. "We are guessing that he is trying to change the past and by doing so alter our present. It is safe to say that he didn't go to the trouble of entering into the past for benign purposes."

"We actually know a slight bit more now Kagome," Sesshoumaru added. "Seems that recently Wei spared a Korean and was even friendly with him; called him his 'dongseang' and his 'brother in suffering.'

"I guess for a total psycho that is relatively friendly," Kagome allowed. "But-"

"In addition," Seshoumaru continued over Kagome, "according to Hakkaku and Ginta, he is expecting them to return with reinforcements sufficient to stop Wei."

"This Korean might have a bit more to say without Wei hovering around," Kouga put in. "Probably wouldn't need to fear having his head cut off. Now is there a reason why Wei has such a hard on for killing us all?"

"I think the way he treated the Korean is telling" Sesshoumaru answered "This requires me to explain something about the future though. Hundreds of years from now, when this island has been unified completely, we are going to conquer both the Koreans and the Chinese in incredibly bloody wars. Wei probably sees Koreans as natural allies against us due to what both their people went through under Japanese rule."

At first, the idea of a united Japan seemed unnatural if not impossible to Kouga. The various warlords had carved out their domains and weren't about to surrender control of what they had built to someone else. A moment more of consideration though and he saw parallels with his own efforts since uniting his tribe with Ayame's. With the resources of both tribes behind him, he had used either persuasion or force-in some cases both-to bring other tribes under him, expanding their territory and settling long-standing feuds to make one unified pack.

Kouga was suddenly hit by a horrific vision of everything he'd built, every alliance he'd made, everything he had sweated for, fought for, bled for, all reduced to ashes and charred remains. Friends' and allies corpses' would litter the ground while Wei desecrated their bodies and feasted from their skulls. _Wei...you think you can take this from me...from us...not going to happen._

"Whatever happened 500 years from now," Kouga growled "I can't do much about but I can do something about Wei. If he spilled something worth knowing to this Korean we need find out what it is."

"Hakkaku, Ginta," Kouga called out. "I'll take Sesshoumaru and Kagome to where we met Wei"-Kouga deliberately avoided mention of his death-"to meet whoever. I want you two to get the pack moving. We're going to war."


	33. Wei's trail

Chapter 34 Wei's trail

Kagome gagged as a sweet fetid stench washed over her in a heated rush of wind. Her eyes watered and the sharp taste of bile rose in her mouth as the foul air assaulted her. Standing at the gate of a demolished town that Wei had evidently attacked, she resisted the urge to cover her nose and forced herself to breathe through her nose, determined to not let the stench make her look as uncomfortable as she felt. No matter what else was in there, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that corpses were rotting in the sun.

Movement to her left caught Kagome's attention as Sango knelt down to examine the ground at the base of the gate. The once brown earth had been charred black and a huge gouge two meters wide and half a meter deep scored the ground leading up to the shattered gate.

Curious to know what had captured Sango's attention, Kagome stepped up to her side and peered at the ground.

"Do you see this?" Sango asked pointing toward what looked like dirt-covered hunks of crystal laid out in a line to the gate. "The force that did this generated enough heat to transform the earth into glass. You did say that Wei had an affinity for fire..."

"Yes, he does." Kagome confirmed. "In order to form Tektites like this, he would have to be able to produce heat in excess of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit."

Kouga's blue eyes looked at Kagome questioningly.

"Tektites are deposits of glass that occur in nature. Extreme heat fuses the earth together to make a glass of sorts."

"And degrees Fahrenheit?" Kouga asked.

"It's a unit of heat measurement," Sesshoumaru commented from nearby. He was tempted to argue with Kagome about whether the newly formed glass deposits could really be called Tektites because they weren't _naturally_ occurring, but decided against it. The argument wouldn't have been worth the effort.

"Come," Sesshoumaru commanded while motioning towards the gate Wei had entered only a short time ago. In his mind's eye, Sesshoumaru could practically see the sick glee written on Wei's face as he turned the town into a terror filled abattoir, while screams filled the air like a shrieking wind.

Entering into the town proper, Sesshoumaru was struck by the lonely quality his footsteps held as they echoed in the silence. Of course, the impression was created by the town itself being nearly empty of life. Every store and house in the outer ring of the town was a burned out husk whose remains looked like broken and blackened skeletons.

Progressing past the outer ring, it was evident that Wei had redesigned the middle and center of the town to his liking.

"Holy..." Kagome gasped in horror.

"It wasn't like this before..." Kouga breathed in a hushed voice, stunned by their enemy's ferocity. Although he had killed many humans in the time before he met Kagome, Kouga had never gone purposefully out of his way to be cruel to them. Wei on the other hand, was clearly determined to torture them mercilessly and desecrate their bodies hideously.

Every adult male inhabitant had been bound to crude wooden crosses set in a circle with each hanging body's chest torn open revealing a red emptiness in it. In the center of the horrid circle, piled meters high in a mound of black and red gore, were the missing internal organs of the men. Hearts, lungs, stomachs, livers, and God knew what else lay under the sky, attracting swarms of flies and other carrion feeders.

And at the base of each cross were the decapitated and naked bodies of the town's women. Each one was pale as porcelain and their bruised limbs had been spread eagle. It was clear immediately from the bite marks and obvious signs of struggle and forced entry that each woman had been gang raped brutally.

Looking at the base of the bloody mound, Kouga noticed misshapen black spheroids were placed at regular intervals. Kouga stared at one for what seemed like hours, trying to determine what it was, until he realized he wasn't looking at the objects head on. He was looking at their profiles.

_Charred_ _infant skulls...he used them for decorations..._

For his part Sesshoumaru knew he was looking at something more than simple murder. It was a monument to pain and death and a clue to whatever madness was spurring Wei on. He wasn't looking just at a scene of mass murder; it was also a glimpse into Wei's mind.

_What is he...Why is he?_

"Kouga," Sesshouamru intoned in a voice of quiet steel, "you said it wasn't like this before. Obviously Wei wants to send a message. Do you perceive any meaning in this?"

"I am going to guess that you do," Kouga answered.

"Wei Cheng is not motivated by a thrill derived from murder. It goes further than that. If murder were his sole objective, he would not go to such obviously elaborate lengths to reap agony from his victims," Sesshoumaru said. "What he is doing here is not just killing people, but _punishing _the Japanese."

"So that leaves the question of why," Kouga said "He wants to change the past. Fine, whatever. If he is punishing these humans though, what is he doing it for?"

"That is still unknown," Sesshoumaru admitted. "But the answer to that is at the center of all of this."

As the word "this" left his lips, the distinct scent of tears, like the salt water waves of the ocean, wafted into Sesshoumaru nostrils, and he turned to the man Wei had spared. He dressed in a traditional Korean hanbok of dark grey with an orange cinch at the waist and approached at a pace that suggested his spirit had been crushed beneath the weight of memories from which he would never be free.


	34. Wei's Message

Chapter 35 Wei's Message

"Even in these times, such a display of savagery is beyond the pale and I am forced to live as a witness to this butchery," The Korean rasped in a voice a voice that quavered on the edge of the blackest despair.

Listening to the voice, Sesshoumaru knew the man's mind was on the precipice of an abyss where the dark allure of madness offered a sweet release from the bloodstained memories of the horrors perpetrated here.

Through his bond with Kagome, Sesshoumaru gently _nudged _her, silently expressing the need for a soft voice and a gentle touch.

"Would the gentleman please tell me his name?" Kagome asked in a soothing voice while she simultaneously let her spiritual powers wash over his tormented soul and calm his disturbed mind.

"Daesung Kang," returned the other softy, as he averted his gaze to the ground; the only place where one could turn their vision to avoid the grisly work of Wei. "You know why Wei spared me? He almost didn't. I was wearing my kimono at the time and two of them dressed in the samurai armor of the lord's retinue seized me and were about to rip out my arms; I could feel the muscles about to tear and I might have even heard a popping sound. My sons though, they screamed "appa" and I thought that would be the last thing I ever heard."

Daesung sucked in an unsteady breath. "It saved my life and theirs. No more than 8 and 10 and with a single word they bought us our lives and all the nightmares that will haunt us forever."

Daesung's accent was heavier than Wei's, but Sesshoumaru understood him well enough. Kouga, Kagome, Sango and Miroku had drawn closer; keeping quiet as the man related his survival tale. "One of them put me in a headlock and the other moved faster than any man could and grabbed my two sons; one in each hand. I felt my heart stop and begged the Gods to not force me to watch the atrocity I _knew_ must be coming; it was happening all around me and my sons were next. Instead, the one holding me tilted my head towards his lips and asked, in my language, where I came from."

"I stammered out Hanseong and the madman smiled at me like we were old friends. Wei was murdering everyone around me and the streets were filled with screams of agony and body parts were flying through the air, but he acted as though everything was right in the world. He released me and introduced himself; told me that although I didn't know it he was doing my people a great favor, as when he was finished our countries would never have to fear this island."

Kagome, who was still using her spiritual abilities to act as a balm for Daesung, suddenly felt a black spike of dread drive into his heart.

"Come, I need to show you something," Daesung's voice cracked slightly on the word "something" and he motioned for them to follow him to a nearby warehouse for sake barrels. Its heavy wooden doors had been torn off their hinges and lay on the ground before the entrance. "There is an obscenity that Wei created from which you may be able to glean meaning. I don't understand it and Wei said explaining it would upset him so much he might accidentally kill me in a rage, which he would find regrettable."

Sesshoumaru and Kouga exchanged a meaningful look. Whatever was in there gave off a stench that made the foulest of sewers smell like roses by comparison.

_We have both been in battlefields aplenty, but this is not a battlefield, this is a slaughterhouse and that warehouse shelters some vile depravity Wei left as his calling card._

At the entrance to the foul darkness of the warehouse, Daesung stopped and addressed the assembled youkai and humans "I have seen it, stared at it, looked for meaning in it but cannot understand it."

Daesung stepped aside from the entrance and allowed them to enter. Sesshoumaru made sure to enter first; he didn't trust that the place was safe even if Daesung had safely observed whatever Wei had left behind. After all, it wasn't Koreans Wei wanted to kill.

The air within the warehouse immediately assaulted his nose with the coppery scent of blood and the loathsome malodor of excrement. Beneath those Sesshoumaru could detect the acrid smell of pain and fear and there was no mystery as for the cause.

Glistening ropes of human intestines were carefully arranged on the eastern wall of the warehouse, nailed into place, while the broken but no doubt still living bodies of Wei's victims looked on helplessly as he had used their entrails to spell out the reason for his genocidal fury.

"What does it say?" Kouga asked. He had not received the benefits of a formal education, but he knew his fellow youkai could make sense of it.

Sesshoumaru, feeling another piece of the puzzle fall into place with a heavy and ominous sound, answered.

"It says, 'Nanking remembers'."


	35. Tokyo Missing

For those who may be interested there is some new fan art I posted on the Dokuga site

Chapter 36 Tokyo Missing

The sun shone through the windows in shafts of gold that gently caressed Shippou and transformed the orange of his hair into a mane of molten copper. His face screwed up in concentration as he weighed out the variables and debated how to unify his daimyo and lead them in conquest across the island.

His opponent, he had learned, was deceptively crafty. Twice he had clashed with her in pitched battles that stalled his advance across the map and in one instance forced him into a desperate defense of his territory.

With Rin and Shippou successfully distracted by the Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan board game, Souta made an excuse about needing to get some fresh air and excused himself. Heading to the front door, he paused as he grasped the doorknob in his hand.

_Something is very wrong here. _

Although not able to pinpoint an exact reason for his feeling of disquiet, Souta felt a strong sense that his house was now situated in the eye of an otherworldly storm.

A whisper in his ear made his heart skip a beat. "Something troubles you?"

Souta did not really need to turn around to know it was Kohaku. He knew the teen exterminator, quiet as a shadow, had followed him.

_Couldn't you just stay with Rin? You like being near her obviously._

"Like I said, just need some fresh air," Souta replied calmly, careful to keep any nervousness out of his voice while turning the knob. He wasn't about to look as though he was being made jumpy by nothing in particular.

"I think I will join you," Kohaku said. "That game is only for two players and sometime outside would be nice."

"Well, your clothing might have people asking questions," Souta pointed out as the door hung open. He wasn't really looking for company and trained killers made him edgy anyway.

"I'll tell them it is a costume," Kohaku replied. "For a play."

"Alright then," Souta conceded. "Let's just go for a walk around the block."

Fifteen minutes later, staring at the roadway nearest his house, Souta knew his intuition had been spot on and something was not just wrong but extremely wrong. The grey, featureless cement, which usually played host to dozens of vehicles a minute, was a barren desert devoid of any traffic.

No cars, trucks, motorcycles or vans of any sort sped along its six lanes. A graveyard could not have been as total in its stillness.

"It isn't normally this quiet, is it?" Kohaku asked. Even completely out of his element, he could see the obvious.

"No, even on the weekend at a slow time it shouldn't be this quiet," Souta replied with a barely discernible measure of anxiety.

_This is my time and no matter what, I refuse to look like a tool in front of Kohaku, _Souta thought determinedly. Turning to the left he took several long strides forward and a few moments later, Kohaku was at his side.

"And now?"

"Maybe the traffic is being diverted for some reason. About three blocks this way is my school and across from it is McDonalds; a restaurant. It has food that is bad for you, but is addictively good. It never closes because people need their fix of golden fries at all hours of the day, so no matter what people should be there."

"I'll have to take your word on all that," Kohaku said, while privately wondering if the food had opium in it. If so, that would explain why people were addicted to it. _Won't be having any of that then._

Even before arriving at their destination, Souta felt a hopelessness overcome him as the emptiness of the city around him became impossible to deny. The walk, although short, seemed impossibly long, as their lonely footsteps sounded with absurd loudness. When they actually did arrive in front of his school it really wasn't any surprise that the McDonalds across the way was vacant. The clear Plexiglas windows offered an unflinching view of the deserted interior.

One detail stood out to them both in its obviousness, even from across the street. On the tables nearest the street side, food remained uneaten on them. Drinks were still standing where they had been set down, burgers both wrapped and unwrapped rested on the tables, boxes of the iconic fries could be seen spilling their golden contents onto the trays beneath.

"Usually I am opposed to wasting food," Kohaku observed, "but this time I think it is best left to whatever scavengers may be in this time."

"Yeah, I can't say I am too eager to get anything," Souta agreed. "Although this is no doubt pointless, I'm going to check my school. Maybe someone is there."

"Since we are here, I guess it wouldn't hurt," Kohaku replied.

Pulling on the door handle, Souta swung it open with a loud whuffing sound as the bottom of the frame slid across the doormat.

_I'm such a good student that even with school out I am still here,_ Souta thought sardonically, as he stepped through the main entrance into the lobby area. As ever, the first thing any visitor saw as they entered was the trophy case with its collection of golden mugs, bowls, and cups. Positioned so that they caught the sun's rays as they entered through the front doors and windows of the main hall, they gleamed in the lighting and demanded attention and praise from whoever saw them.

_No one really cares though, do they? You may want to be remembered but you will be forgotten and only a golden knickknack everyone ignores remains. _Souta reflected that he was getting amazingly cynical as he went into his teens.

"Is that real gold?" Kohaku asked from behind, as they strolled past the display into the side halls.

"Nah, its fake, just meant to look like it," Souta answered and then held up his hand to signal the need for quiet. From farther down the hall, he heard the unmistakable sound of chalk being used on chalkboard.

Souta looked at Kohaku out of the corner of his eye. The exterminator soundlessly produced a blade as long as his hand and Souta felt his heartbeat quicken. Simultaneously, he found himself terrified of that sound and the room it was emerging from, but driven to find what was making it.

By silent agreement Kohaku and Souta, spoke not a word as they moved down the hall, drawing closer to the sound of chalk scraping against the dark grey slate of its companion board. Tracing the sound to room 113, they halted just outside the door. Souta heard the sound of chalk being placed down and his heart thudded with impossible force in his chest. At the edge of knowledge or ignorance, of fight or flight, his life hung in the balance as he considered whether he really desired to enter the room and confront whatever it was.

There was a whisper of sound and Kohaku made the decision for them both as he vaulted in, blade at the ready.

Souta's heart damn near jumped out his chest as he awaited the inevitable sound of Kohaku clashing in battle, but heard only silence.

"Ummm, no one is here," came Kohaku's voice.

Souta let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding and entered the classroom. Kohaku stood in its center, between rows of neatly arranged desks, and pointed to the blackboard. "What does that say?"

Souta felt a moment of jarring unreality as he took in the message on the board. "I think we should keep quiet about this until my sister and Sesshoumaru return. Let them handle it."

"Why? What does it say?" Kohaku asked with irritation bleeding into his voice. A moment later he regretted asking.

"It says 'Souta, your homework for tonight is to write a one million word essay on the death of all that is unholy.' "


	36. Grievances

Author's note: On Dokuga and on Deviantart, under my name SonofZhon, I have a few fan arts uploaded for this story. I think I will probably commission two more and that will be all. Oh and I demand 10 billion reviews before I post the next chapter! Just kidding. I wouldn't do that.

Also, hello to the person in Thailand reading this story. Sawatdee kraup.

Chapter 37 Grievances

"This has something to do with the wars of conquest you were telling us about, doesn't it?" Miroku asked. Truthfully though, he felt that he did not want to know the answer. A terrible premonition came over him that whatever the dark truth was behind Wei's insane vendetta against the Japanese people, it would be something that would forever stain his soul.

As if to punctuate that thought, an angry howl arose in the distance like a warning to him not to ask for more than he could bear.

"Yes," Sesshoumaru confirmed while he mentally reexamined all the evidence, looking for anything that might give further explanation for Wei. "I don't know how much time we have, but I'm sure it isn't enough so I'll make this quick. About 450 years from now, when Japan is unified and China's last dynasty is on its deathbed, we are going to invade them. The reasons don't matter right now, what matters is that we completely lose our minds and commit atrocity after atrocity. One event in particular, the Rape of Nanking, will go down in Chinese history as the worst exhibition of our country's madness."

"Looking at this," Sesshoumaru gestured to encompass the grotesque scene of vengeance surrounding them, "I can see that Wei is re-enacting it only with us as the victims this time. He wants us to suffer what they suffered at Nanking."

Miroku's eyes suddenly looked several shades darker as he considered the future and the hideousness it offered. To him, Kagme's future seemed like a brighter place than his own time, but the existence of Wei argued that it was just as troubled, if not more so.

_Is this really what we become? Is he just a dark mirror to us? _Miroku felt a profound sense of dejection settle over him as he considered such a mournful future.

"It gets worse than what you see here," Daesung interjected into his thoughts with a terrible certainty as another howl split the air in the distance. "Wei is only entertaining himself some with this nightmarish massacre. He showed me something; it was like a scroll but..I don't know what to say...it wasn't. I couldn't fully grasp what it was; it seemed to be made of ever shifting golden rays of light. Whenever you thought you saw and understood what it was, it _shifted_ in some indescribable way. Wei told me that it was the Seal of Heaven and he was going to use it to summon one of Heaven's dragons and 'purify this island' as he put it."

Both Kagome and Sesshoumaru felt a black revelation wash over them like the coldest of waves of an ebon ocean.

"If he can command a Celestial Dragon from Heaven..." Kagome began, thinking about the devastation that could be wrought if Wei successfully harnessed the power of the divine.

"...then he would be unstoppable and Japan would be at his mercy," Sesshoumaru finished for her, picturing Japan being consumed in blinding and catastrophic light. Through their bond multiple possibilities were being evaluated, but they all led to only one real course of action. "We don't have a means to stop a Celestial Dragon, so we will have to stop Wei before he can summon one."

"Maybe I am missing something here," Kouga said "I've seen dragons before like Ryūkotsusei and they aren't invincible or anything. Just really hard to kill."

"That isn't the kind of dragon we are talking about Kouga," Kagome explained. "We are talking about the kind that are _divine_. The difference is like that between a light breeze and a typhoon. Wei could literally reshape the face of the earth if he can successfully command one."

A heavy silence settled on the group as the prospect of Wei having power of such immensity at his disposal weighed on their minds and spirits. The leaden silence was pierced by another howl, closer this time.

A moment later and a chorus of answering howls replied in unison. Normally that would have cheered Kouga as it revealed how close his pack was. Now however, he wondered if they would arrive in time to save their land.

_The surest way to lose is to believe you will, _Kouga thought to himself. _It's not over yet._

He turned to Sesshoumaru with an air of confidence. "You can hear them coming. Those are about 1200 fighters from my pack. Time may be short, but we will be ready."

"I hope the gentlemen and ladies won't think less of me if I ask them a favor," Daesung said somewhat nervously, while raising his eyes to look at the group. "I stayed to give what information I could to stop this blood drenched insanity, but I have no wish to get caught in the crossfire between all of you and Wei."

Daesung looked meaningfully at Sango, Miroku and Kirara, "My sons and I would appreciate an escort away from this place and to the nearest port."

Miroku nodded thoughtfully as another round of howls and their responses filled the air. He understood immediately Daesung's desire to return home to Korea, where safety for him and his sons could be found. The roads though would offer their own brand of peril if it was just a single merchant and his two young sons. _He stayed here because he was hoping to wrangle protection in exchange for what he knew from the wolves. Quite a gamble. But then, traveling alone would be as well, considering bandits and other youkai. _

Miroku looked to Sango who looked torn between wanting to help Daesung and staying with Kagome to confront Wei.

"I am sure that with more than a thousand wolves coming to engage Wei our absence will not be a critical loss," he said.

Sango's face darkened as her pride took a hit from that unintentional slight against her, but ultimately she knew it was true. "Well then, I guess we had best get started. Where are your sons?"

"Hiding inside the stables," Daesung answered. "I did not want them to see the full extent of what Wei has done and also felt it was safer for them to be out of sight."

_In case the wolves' gratitude was less than you might hope,_ Miroku conjectured silently. _The smell of the horses and their leavings would also confer camouflage of sorts to your children. Smart man._

"Well, let's go get them," Sango said while following Daesung to his sons and wondering if Wei had killed the horses or left them alive. _I'll bet they are still alive. He only seems to care about the Japanese.._

If the horses were alive, even if Daesung and his children were poor riders, they could move much faster, Sango reflected. _Kirara certainly can't carry everyone. _


	37. Gathering Forces

Chapter 38 Gathering Forces

"When will they arrive?" Sesshoumaru asked. Standing outside the town's gate and watching the golden disk of the sun as it began to dip beneath the horizon, losing its bottom portion in the process, it was almost possible to push the slaughterhouse in back of him to the rear of his thoughts.

It was obvious from the increasing number of howls and relative loudness of them that Kouga's pack was getting steadily closer. However, as Sesshoumaru was used to flying in this era, he was uncertain about the time it would take to cover the distances involved.

_Too bad mass transit hasn't been invented yet. _The idea of Kouga and his tribe riding on a subway almost caused his lips to twitch upwards, which caused Kagome to look at him askance. _Going to have to guard my thoughts more carefully. Doesn't look appropriate to be experiencing a moment of mirth amidst such carnage, _Sesshoumaru thought to himself.

"Won't be long," Kouga answered, unknowingly preventing Kagome from pursuing the matter further. "From the rise and fall of the pitch and length of the howl I can tell we will be having company soon enough."

"Hey, Sesshoumaru," Kouga asked. "Since you have the Tensaiga, why haven't you tried to restore all those people to life?"

Sesshoumaru regarded Kouga for a moment. He suspected that the real reason Kouga wanted him to use the Tensaiga was to see if in the upcoming confrontation with Wei he could count on minimizing how many of his pack would be lost.

_What any good leader would want _Sesshoumaru allowed as he felt a slight increase in the amount of respect he held for Kouga.

"The Tensaiga is capable of reviving the dead, it is true," Sesshoumaru responded, "but there are limits to what it can accomplish. In order for the resurrection to work properly a majority of the body must be intact."

Sesshoumaru motioned toward the piles of organs, headless and eviscerated bodies back in the town. "Unless you want to try to piece together the various parts, a resurrection would not be advisable. The most you would be able to gain, under the present conditions, is a multitude of spasming body parts."

"I see." Kouga paused and looked at Sesshoumaru's shoulder. "Mind if I ask what happened-"

"It is no longer considered fashionable to wear such furs," Sesshoumaru said, in a tone that discouraged further questions about it. He then glanced at Kouga's ankles and wrists. "What are those bracelets?" 

"Think you are the only one who can afford Totosai's labor?" Kouga asked with a mixture of pride and resentment. "They cost an arm and a leg but they give me strength and speed that makes it worth it all."

"I'm sure Japan will be needing every ounce of strength and speed you have," Sesshoumaru said, while directing his molten gaze at Kouga.

"Japan has it," Kouga returned with a seriousness that matched the icy resolve in his eyes.

"Look," Kagome said, while pointing at the setting sun. Little black dots of flickering motion were bobbing up and down in the distance.

Hundreds of them.

"Finally," Kouga said, as his pack came into view.

"Not a moment too soon," Sesshoumaru said, but silently added _possibly too late. _


	38. Wei's Determination

Shima Yoshiko struggled through mud that stung the raw wounds on her arms and legs and mixed with her blood.

Screams of outrage and pain vied in the smoke filled air for supremacy in the nightmare that had once been her family's land.

Shima fell to her knees in the mud of the rice paddies as she tried to escape her pursuers. She tried to stand, but the thick mud held her hands and feet prisoner. Fighting panic, she concentrated on reaching one hand forward to grab a rock and pull herself forward. Instead the rock came free in her hand and she shuddered in disgust as she realized what it was.

Glazed and lifeless eyes stared up at her from a head whose mouth was frozen open in a rictus of terror.

She dropped the grisly object hastily.

"Gods," Shima whispered desperately in a forlorn prayer, "please...in the name of mercy..."

And before her plea had ended, she was grabbed roughly from behind, dragged backwards through the muck like she was nothing more than garbage. Shima screamed and tried to kick away, but the hands that held her were firm and unyielding in their grip and no purchase could be found in the mud.

Dragged out of the rice patty fields, Shima increased her struggles as she saw that a crowd of _them_ awaited her. And like broken toys, the used and discarded bodies of dozens of women were piled high to their side. Everyone one of them was covered in bruises and their now slack limbs hung at odd and unnatural angles from their bodies.

On the other side of the creatures from hell-from where else could they come-the men of the town had been tied to wooden crosses. Bound and spread eagle, they struggled in futility as their women were ravaged mercilessly before their eyes.

Drawing nearer to the creatures, Shima caught sight of her father. His grime covered cheeks had furrows of cleanliness carved in them from tears streaking down his face. As he saw her being dragged towards where the other women lay, he started screaming frantically, but his hoarse cries were ignored and soon drowned out by his daughter's cries as her clothes were torn off.

In the next moment, her screaming intensified as she was violated in the deepest and most humiliating way possible. Dark eyes full of malicious glee stared down into hers as she felt her virtue being viciously torn away in an unforgivable act of dark depravity and sadistic joy.

Shima screamed until her throat felt like it was bleeding internally, as one after another of the vile creatures ripped into her mercilessly and displayed hideous imagination in their in unspeakable acts of violation.

After a seeming eternity of pain and what felt like hundreds of the creatures raping her, they finally finished with her broken body and tossed her aside. Shima's mind screamed at her to try to escape but her shattered body refused to respond. It was sinking in a burning lake of torment, drowning her in despair and suffering.

With a Herculean effort, she focused her eyes enough to see the closest object. It was one of the creatures holding a sickle and smiling hatefully at her. The creature raised the sickle above his head and swung it downward. Cutting through the air with a whistling sound, it descended on her throat. A wet tearing sound was heard as a ragged red line was opened in her throat and her remaining life gushed out in a torrent of red.

* * *

Wei felt gloriously alive as he returned in kind to the Japanese what they had done to his people. He smiled in delight at the chaos and terror surrounding his bodies. The screams of pain and the sounds of bodies breaking were like an exquisite symphony to his ears. And it was only a taste of what he intended for this pitiful collection of islands that had dared to cross his people.

_Revenge __**is**__ sweet, _Wei affirmed silently to whoever first made that observation uncounted millennia ago.

The howls sounding in the distance though, tarnished Wei's bliss. They reminded him of a failure on his part brought on in part by his self-indulgence. Instead of making it a certainty, he had left that Higuarashi woman to bleed to death alone in the darkness of the well.

Clearly that had not happened.

While he indulged himself in attacking and razing a farming community, he had felt Sesshoumaru's entrance into this timeframe. He knew Sesshoumaru could not travel through time on his own so the woman had to be alive still.

_How did you manage to survive a sword through the stomach? _

No doubt they would be coming after him. The trail he left was impossible to miss. Wei evaluated his strategic situation. In this time there was no way to kill him; his only weakness would not come into existence for another 450 years. The newest addition to his arsenal, the youkai he found, was still unknown to his opponents.

_It proved wise to hold it in reserve while adjusting to it; no doubt it will be quite the surprise later. Still, it would not do to be carelessly overconfident. With Sesshoumaru back in play I can't rely on ignorance in my opponents as a weakness...It is possible for him to take advantage of the wolves' attack or simply ally with them and check me. _

Wei made a silent vow he would not allow that to happen. He and Sesshoumaru were locked in a conflict for control of the fabric of fate and Wei would not fail his people.

_The weave of fate needs a new pattern and I will be the one who provides it. China will never be a victim of Japan. No country will. _

The castle town he had assaulted earlier had contained a raised-relief map, which had made clear the lord's overall plan before his untimely demise. It had been a central node in a defensive line being constructed to better control and protect his realm. A satellite fortress built onto a mountaintop had been Wei's next target, but he had not been in any particular hurry to reach it and had allowed a diversion to entertain himself.

_Such diversions stop now. As satisfying as they have been, it is time to seize destiny and write a new fate for Asia. _

Wei then turned to look at the golden disk of the sun, a third of it consumed by the hungry darkness of the horizon. Wei etched every glint of light, every shadowed tree, every curve of the red and orange canopy of billowing clouds deep into his memories. This would be his most treasured moment and he wanted to make certain he never forgot a single detail. This was the last sunset the Land of the Rising Sun would ever see. 


	39. Marching towards Destruction

Author's note: For those who are curious Wei's theme song would be Takedown by Blue Stahli, Sesshoumaru's would be Invincible by Two Steps from Hell, and Kagome's would be This is Gonna Hurt by Sixx AM.

Chapter 40 Marching towards Destruction

There were times at which Kagome could almost remember what it was like to be normal. Before creatures out of nightmares were trying to kill or eat her, before a well acted as a gateway to the impossible, before the past and the present became so intermingled that she couldn't tell where she belonged.

At times, she missed those days, which were relatively carefree.

_But those days are gone and we have to face the truth of the days that lie before us. _

As part of a column of mostly wolf youkai heading roughly east and following Wei's trail of destruction, Kagome rode on Sesshoumaru's back as he used his gravity defying abilities to keep pace with the fast moving column.

A ways to the front, Kouga ran ahead of her, howling at semi-regular intervals and receiving answering howls back, which were clearly being used as some sort of improvised command system.

_Just like drums, bells, and whistles have been since God knows when. _

Kagome had to admit Kouga's followers were far more orderly than she might have expected. Rather than running in a swarm as she anticipated, they lined up into four militarily precise files, each numbering three hundred, and proceeded under Kouga's direction. Hakkaku and Ginta led the outermost, files which Kagome suspected contained the more veteran wolves judging by the scars. Kouga, placing himself in the middle, headed up the two inner most files of which Kagome found herself in the far right one.

Traveling with her, one running on each of her flanks, were Kouga's subordinates from his newly conquered territories: Isamu from the south and Akihiro from the west. Kagome had accepted the task of filling them in and answering questions since she could immediately sense Sesshoumaru did not relish the prospect of engaging in conversation with them. While she could sense a certain level of surprise and grudging admiration for the assembled wolves through their bond, her boyfriend was not of a verbose nature and tolerating the wolf youkai grated on his nerves.

_I'll bet he also would find it impossible to keep condescension out of his voice. _Kagome thought ruefully.

The organization Kouga had forced on his expanded pack struck Kagome as being brutally efficient but exactly what she might have expected. After subjugating the western and southern wolf tribes, the wolf prince had demanded their heirs be sent to the north where Ayame and her clan could hold them as hostages to ensure the good behavior.

_Wonder if he took that idea from observing human daimyos... _

With their children in his possession Kouga had then married some of his tribe into theirs to keep tabs on them and lock them more tightly into an alliance. The former leaders of the southern and western tribes, Isamu and Akihiro, were allowed nominal control over their territory as long as they complied with Kouga's rules, the most important of which was a prohibition against eating humans.

It was something they reluctantly accepted, but which was a lingering cause of resentment among some of the wolves assembled. She noted that a few of them looked at her hungrily and she did not need a spiritual bond with Sesshoumaru to know it was setting him on edge.

"He does this simply because we were born here? That is his sole reason?" Isamu asked breaking into Kagome's thoughts. She nodded reluctantly. If the concept of nationalism struck him as unusual, a bitter blood feud between nations that had not even formed yet must seem downright bizarre.

Isamu's face turned contemplative as he tried to take in the future Kagome had sketched out and all the implications it held.

Looking at him, Kagome decided that Isamu looked like a more refined version of Kouga. His appearance overall was one of greater elegance; his attire consisted of a set of gleaming crimson armor whose plated scales ran the length of his thighs and provided a protective skirt for his waist and groin. The irises of his eyes were a red-orange that, when they caught the rays of the sun at the right angle, flashed like fire. His obsidian hair, styled in a high topknot, fell down to the nape of his neck like ebon silk.

"When Kouga forced me, forced the south, into submission," Isamu continued, "he demanded that we of the south no longer feast on humans. I thought it was an absurd requirement and was aghast at it. Wolves are not meant to be shepherds caring for human sheep. I've grown used to it, but never accepted it."

Kagome was uncertain whether she felt Sesshoumaru growl or heard it.

"That slaughter though...it was what Kouga was trying to make me understand, to make us all understand. We are wolves and predators, but we are not beasts of the field. We kill what we need, we control ourselves and there is no need to kill humans. Wei is the opposite, completely out of control, gorging on violence and fear. A horrific example of all we should strive not to be."

Akihiro grunted his agreement. ""At that human town, we saw what was in his heart; it is only the need for blood and vengeance against us."

In contrast to Isamu, Akihiro looked like a rougher, piratical version of Hakkaku. He was completely bald, missing one eye and wore sturdy black armor trimmed with gold that bore scars of battles past. "What is our crime exactly? We were born here? We speak our language? Piss on that. The future isn't what I dreamed it to be, but I can see that we, all of us, human and youkai alike, will have to stand as one or be like leaves in a fire, burning one by one."

Kagome felt a warm sense of approval roll through Sesshoumaru's mind. _Careful now, you might actually grow fond of them._

Akihiro turned his head so that Kagome could see his remaining emerald eye. "You said he could create copies of himself. Hakkaku and Ginta said they saw thousands of the bastard. But armies of him are not flooding the land."

Sesshoumaru broke his long silence to answer the implied question. "Logically, Wei must have an upper limit to the number of bodies he can create or indeed the land would be flooded with him. The tracks he has left behind look like he has created about two thousand of himself. If he can create more, he deliberately isn't doing so."

A thought suddenly struck Sesshoumaru.

"Kagome, do you realize that Wei could not have obtained that seal on his own?" Sesshoumaru asked suddenly. His voice left no doubt where he was going with this question.

Kagome thought for a moment before speaking, "A God or Goddess gave it to him? But why now? That doesn't add up; there isn't a reason to give the seal now as opposed to months or years ago. Could he have stolen it instead?"

"It does seem unlikely that it was freely given. I don't think he could have stolen it, but another God or Goddess might have obtained it for him," Sesshoumaru said.

"For what purpose?" Isamu asked "Could not a God travel through this well that links the eras without such elaborate measures? Why would a God need the services of Wei if they wanted to change the past?"

For a brief moment Kagome had the eerie sense that they were no more than puppets in a shadow play, twisting and dancing insanely in a production spanning centuries and set against the backdrop of history between China and Japan. Their unseen puppeteer, smiling in the shadows behind the screen, forced his unwilling puppets towards an apocalyptic denouement for an incomprehensible reason.

Sesshoumaru picked up on the melancholy turn of Kagome's thoughts, but did his best to project calm in his response. "Whoever is behind Wei obviously resides in our era. Whatever their goals, they aren't confronting us directly which allows us to focus on the immediate threat, Wei."

Kagome might have responded but, as if to punctuate the truth of Sesshoumaru's words, existence shrieked in horror as an impossible hatred impaled it on a spear of tainted spiritual power. Kagome tried to shut it out, tried to block it from overwhelming her but discovered it was already lessening and fading away.

As it receded, it was obvious Japan's spiritual landscape had just been horrifically altered. Although not visible to any eyes, Kagome's vision showed her what could only be described as a pillar of malignant purple light rising from a nearby mountain.

Sesshoumaru, whose perception of the spiritual realm was much more limited, experienced what might be equated with a sudden and loud burst of static over their connection. "Kagome?"

"There," Kagome answered in a pained daze while pointing at a mountain jutting up from the ground directly ahead of them. The light of an unnatural star suddenly punctured the blue, velvet canopy of the night hanging over the mountain. In a perhaps the most disturbingly ominous sight any had ever seen, the hideous light of the false star began to thread its way across the sky like it was a wound slicing open the heavens.

"It's Wei," Kagome said in a hollow voice. "He started the summoning."


	40. A Matter of Fate

Chapter 41 A Matter of Fate

Wei came to a conclusion that was, for him, extremely regrettable. It filled him with disgust, but there was no doubt about it; he would have to keep the woman alive and in relatively good condition

_What was her name? Something with a K sound wasn't it? I need to stop being so impetuous and pay attention to the people I'm killing. _

Although it went against ever fiber of his being, in order to carve out the best possible future for his people, he needed to be able to continuously access the time slip, which required her to continue to live.

_I suppose it's an unintended benefit of my carelessness earlier that she didn't die. _

While wiping out Japan would go a long way towards helping China, waiting around 500 years to see the results of his work was inefficient. Instead, by switching back and forth between the modern era and this era he would be able to adjust events as needed to ensure the best possible outcome for his homeland.

_I'll have to capture her again. I should go ahead and station myself near the well and begin laying a net for her._

There was a wet ripping sound as the Wei who wore modern clothing was suddenly bathed in blood as several nearby Weis burst open into a shower of crimson and transferred their power into him. Covered head to toe in blood, he turned to leave and as he did so, his appearance instantly normalized, as the blood and power therein were absorbed by him.

Several other Weis also made their exit to develop a net for capturing the woman.

_If I can figure out how to duplicate her powers, then I can dispense with any undeserved mercy..._

With an effort, Wei turned his mind from the joys her tears would bring to his defenses. The fortress he had taken over was a decent sized motte and bailey castle. As with all such designs, the mound of earth, which made up the motte, had been topped with a keep. The keep, probably to keep costs down, was made mostly of wood and covered with a thick layer of plaster to mitigate damage from fire-based attacks.

The two concentric defense rings that made up the baileys were respectable by the standards of the period. The innermost ring, which enclosed the keep and the barracks, was a simple and straightforward palisade of hewn logs that had been renovated so that a wall-walk was in place along with four wooden towers ideally placed for archers.

The outermost ring was clearly the work of an expansion project. It enclosed a forge, a small stable, and a storehouse for arquebuses. Its walls were made of stone and its curve supported a larger wall-walk with ports cut in it from which arquebuses could be deployed. It also had three towers whose outward faces had been slated with stone to make them more resistant to damage.

The fortress's work force had been in the midst of digging a trench along an outer wall when Wei attacked.

_Sadly I arrived before they completed it and I had to finish it myself. _

Wei had not bothered torturing the defenders, but instead killed them with greater speed than they deserved, appropriated their weapons and armor, and set about making some additional improvements to the fortress while pursuing his primary goal for Japan.

Turning some of his eyes skyward, Wei saw his gateway slowly taking shape, spreading steadily across the sky in a series of jagged white lines of frozen lightning.

_Soon, all wrongs done to us will be made right. _


	41. Wolves at the Gate

Chapter 42 Wolves at the Gate

The mountain loomed before them, its height and terrain offering formidable obstacles to any human army; the terrain limited maneuverability for such armies so as to rule out flanking or rear assaults. A siege against the fortress built into its side could go on for years and get nowhere. A frontal assault would channel the attackers onto a killing apron where the defenders had their strongest advantage.

_But this army isn't composed of humans, Wei. _

"He really fucked up," Kouga said, looking at the fortifications before him. At about 30 meters away it wasn't terribly difficult to study the challenges it presented, but Wei had helpfully lit numerous torches and bonfires to provide a better view of it. "That place may hold off humans, but it is going to fall quickly against us."

Sesshoumaru turned to Kouga, the firelight dancing in his golden eyes and his lips twitched upwards in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "He is thinking like a human would and set his defense accordingly. Additionally, he spread himself out into thousands of bodies, which has to dilute his power. Combine that with the fact that he also has to have a constant drain on his power to perform his summoning and we have an opportunity we cannot afford to waste." 

"Don't be too confident," Kagome cautioned, as she let her perceptions stretch out to encompass the fortress and felt the warped malevolent spiritual power of Wei; whatever he was doing was causing enough turbulence on the spiritual plane that her spiritual bond with Sesshoumaru was filled with the equivalent of white noise unless they were next to each other. "I can sense points of hardened spiritual energy spaced evenly along the perimeter. They're wards of some sort."

"And what will these wards do?" Akihiro asked.

"One way to find out," Kagome answered.

The air around them became electrified as Kagome tapped into her own spiritual power to create a barrier in front of them.

"Sesshoumaru," Kagome said with an odd resonance in her voice. "Give it a love tap with the Toukijin."

Sesshoumaru leveled the blade at the fortifications and with reasonable restraint, let loose a ribbon of turquoise destruction. It streaked through the air and struck an invisible barrier. Rather than dissipate across the barrier's surface, it seemed to become more concentrated.

A sound like the air being split by thunder and the energy returned to strike back against them only to be stopped on Kagome's barrier, which dissipated it harmlessly.

"Love tap indeed," Isamu said wryly.

"Mmmm," Sesshoumaru responded. "Just be glad Kagome is spiritually perceptive. If I had unleashed a windscar we would be facing a serious problem. Seems that attacks relying on yoki will be reflected back."

"So we get up close and personal," Kouga replied.

Akihiro gave a feral smile. "That suits me."

Kouga turned his face up towards the night sky where the unnatural light was spreading across its surface like festering wound. It did not require a mind reader to know that Kouga was trying to guess how long they had before Wei succeeded.

"I may be able to interfere with his summoning," Kagome announced while staring at the shadowed form of the keep. She could _feel _the power pulsing out from it rhythmically; it was being controlled very precisely like an abhorrent cadence of the mad.

Before anyone could voice any questions, she continued. "To me it is almost like a song or beat and I think I can throw it off. I would need to be able to focus on it entirely though."

"Kouga-" Sesshoumaru began, but did not finish.

"I got it covered," Kouga said quickly. "Near the back of the lines and with Hakkaku and Ginta and a few others guarding her."

Kagome and Sesshoumaru had a silent debate more in impressions than in words. He was reluctant to rely on wolves to protect her, but she was adamant that he be with Kouga at the front. Although Sesshouamaru understood fully the necessity of it-Wei needed to have all his attention focused on the frontal assault so that he could not spare any concentration to counter her-the thought of not being by her side did not sit well with him. Deeply uneasy about it, Sesshoumaru ultimately was in grudging agreement that his place was on the front line.

_The best defense is a good offense_ he thought silently to himself.

Oblivious to the silent drama that played itself out between Sesshoumaru and Kagome, Kouga turned and said "I need to speak with my pack. I'll tell Hakkaku and Ginta to expect you soon. Akihiro, Isamu, let's go."

Sesshoumaru watched as Kouga turned and took Akihiro and Isamu with him back to his followers. It struck Sesshoumaru as hideously surreal that Japan wasn't even really aware it was in a desperate battle for its life. Wei's identity was not known at large, his attack was so sudden and his method so unexpected that neither the modern Japan nor the feudal Japan could comprehend just how close it was to being obliterated and history rewritten.

_Everything will be decided in the next hour. Everyone, even if they don't know it, is counting on us to save them from being the victims of a temporal mass murder. _

Sesshoumaru suddenly felt the crushing weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Maybe it had always been there and he just wasn't aware of it, but now the full burden of his nation's existence was keenly felt and apprehension seized him in jaws of doubt.

_I'm a college student in law school and I may be the best hope my country has of not being wiped out of existence. More than a hundred million people are going to- _

"Don't get all dour on me," Kagome teased as she grabbed his hands. She could sense where the dark turn in his train of thought was taking him. "Where is that trademark self-assurance?"

Sesshoumaru eyes softened as he indulged in the joy of her touch. "Women always know how to provide inspiration for men. In this moment, that is exactly what I needed."

"Good," Kagome said turning serious "We've got a nation depending on us and we need everything we can throw at Wei, including and especially your certainty of victory."

"Kagome, I may have faltered for just a moment, but I didn't come back from the dead only to lose everything to a maniac. Wei is going to be stopped. There is nothing else."

Kagome wanted to pull him closer, to kiss him, to share with him a moment of tenderness and comfort, but amidst the madness and murder they were surrounded by the act seemed selfish and vulgar.

Kagome slowly pulled her hands from his and broke away from his amber gaze, "I have my own part to play in this and it is time I get started. Don't forget who you are."

Sesshoumaru watched her retreat to the back of the wolf pack with a grim and stoic expression on his face. Turning to face Wei and the fortress he commandeered, Sesshoumaru felt his resolve steel itself against all doubts. "It doesn't end here for us Wei. We've come too far and accomplished too much to lay down for you."

* * *

Normally the velvet darkness of night would make surveying his pack difficult, but the unnatural light of Wei's false star provided an unintentional benefit to Kouga. Looking out at their faces, he saw a slew of expressions ranging from concealed nervousness to affected nonchalance.

Most, however, wore an expression of utter determination that filled him with pride.

They knew the stakes had never been higher; the heavens up above them were being ripped open and they were ready to sacrifice anything to save everything.

Kouga gestured for them all to fall silent. "All of you have seen Wei's cruelty; the massacred towns he left behind show what he wants for all of us. The future is here and it doesn't care if we are youkai or human. The only thing it cares about is murdering us all."

There came a low rumbling from his pack, resonant and deep.

"No longer do we fight as tribes or as youkai, now we are fighting as one people unified against a foreign invader who will show no mercy at all. Everything is on the line here. Our homes, our women, our children, everyone and everything."

The rumbling became growls and full throated-snarls. Kouga knew he had their undivided attention and just need to give them a target.

"Let me tell you something," Kouga said "Wei is not going to win. This is where we take control of the future and make it ours. This is our land; Wei isn't welcome here, and he's gotta go."

In a gesture encompassing them all Kouga continued, "You **will **return home victorious. You **will **tell your children and your grandchildren how you saved this land and all in it. You **will** control your destiny, not Wei!"

Howls erupted and the assembled wolves stamped their feet in approval

"NOW LET'S TEACH THAT MOTHERFUCKER WHAT IT MEANS TO MESS WITH US!"


	42. China versus Japan

Author's note: There is some new fan art up on dokuga and Deviantart for this story. Deviantart has something of a spoiler for a future chapter but nothing too severe.

Wei heard a full on roar erupt from his enemies and he knew the attack was imminent. They had assembled themselves into an attack formation suitable for a frontal assault, which pleased Wei immensely. As he had simply rounded up and incinerated the fortress guard earlier, he did not receive the satisfaction of reveling in their agony or in desecrating their corpses.

When this battle was over though, he intended to form an artificial lake and fill it with Japanese blood.

_I want to bathe in it, taste their agony, swim in their suffering. _

Wei's heart thundered in his chest and the blood pumped furiously through his veins at the thought of how exhilarating being drenched in the scarlet flow of their life would be.

He recently also had some ideas about making furniture from his victims. The arms and legs could be used to form legs for chairs, while the spinal column and ribs could make up the back. Creating the actual seat might be challenging, but he figured he could use the pelvis to form it and perhaps could use the lungs as cushions. He knew he would have to experiment some with less important prisoners before perfecting it, but that suited him well enough.

_Greatness cannot be rushed._

When Wei did perfect his crafting skills he knew from whom his throne would be made. Wei could see his silver mane even now, as the opposing forces surged forward.

_Sesshoumaru..._

* * *

Although superhuman, Wei still thought like a normal human and had arrayed his defensive line as though he were facing human opponents. His front line consisted of an integrated mix of pikes, swords, and rows of arquebuses for volley fire into the approaching enemy. Behind them, Wei had formed ranks of archers who could rain down arrows in an arc of death from high above. The parts of him that had fought on numerous battlefields and knew how to use combined arms to great effect expected victory.

Those parts of Wei had never fought against an army that wasn't human however.

Wei's arquebuses boomed like thunder and carved furrows into the enemy forces, thinning them out some, but to Wei's astonishment and acute dismay, not nearly enough. The wolves were barely slowed as youkai strength and endurance outmatched the firearms Wei had acquired and any gaps he did open in their ranks were immediately filled.

Before his archers could even let loose their arrows the fortress's outer wall was overrun and became a ring of slaughter as the wolves swarmed over Wei's front line. Not bothering with the gate, they simply leapt up to the wall-walks to engage Wei in brutal melee combat, ripping into his bodies with total abandon, filling the night air with a fine red mist. At such close range the arquebusiers and archers suddenly became nearly useless and the finely tuned formations Wei had used degenerated completely as the outer courtyard became the scene of a knockdown drag out brawl between Japan's defenders and China's wrath.

* * *

Sesshoumaru didn't know exactly what to expect when confronting Wei, but it wasn't this. He had been cutting down Wei after Wei, sending blood and entrails flying though the air, but the momentum of the initial assault had stalled as Wei rebuilt his bodies and leapt up to the attack again. The one he had fought in the subway was much stronger and as of yet none of the Wei clones he had faced proved (excepting their unkillable nature) nearly as difficult.

A cone of fire erupted on his right and Sesshoumaru had a chill twist through his stomach. A Wei dressed in samurai armor was lighting up the night with flaming wolves as he methodically began to clear the flank of their presence. Turning his head to the other side, Sesshoumaru saw a few more Wei's dressed in samurai armor on the opposite side reclaiming that flank as well.

_He is going to hem us in and enfilade us._

* * *

Wei was not pleased by how the battle had developed. He had failed to anticipate that human weapons would not have the same effect on youkai and would not tear them apart as quickly. He had also failed to realize that scaling the walls would not present a problem for them which cost him the first defensive line.

He had managed to stop the assault force from breaching the second line by virtue of the fact that he was functionally immortal. However, he had lost the initiative and the quickest way to lose a battle was to react instead of act. Pulling some of his more powerful bodies from reserve he began roasting the wolves on one side of the battle lines and cutting them to pieces on the other.

One of his bodies that had engaged Sesshoumaru and been sliced in half saw the former youkai lord's attention drift to the flanks and then settle on his most powerful body, the one holding the Shining Hate.

Wei turned that body to face Sesshoumaru, while other bodies eviscerated wolves and tossed them from the walls. "YOU WANT ME? COME AND GET ME!"


	43. Counter Measures

Author's note: If you see me use the word demon in the story please let me know. I am trying to use youkai since demon is inaccurate and a mistranslation but I may have have mistakenly put it in. Also if you see grammar or spelling errors or unclear sentence construction let me know so I can edit as needed.

Chapter 44 Counter Measures

Situated far back from the front line and with thirty wolf youkai guarding her (and Hakkaku and Ginta overseeing them,) Kagome thought the disquiet eating at the edges of her mind must have been misplaced. Nonetheless, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something they were all overlooking.

_But I can only do what I can do and that means focusing on Wei._

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, she closed her eyes and opened herself fully to the spiritual world; the din of battle, the coppery aroma blood, even the feel of the hard ground beneath her melted away as the incorporeal world opened a disturbing new vista for her. Wei appeared in her vision with dark eyes filled with inhuman malice. Physically, she knew he was nowhere nearby, but his presence was so strong he seemed to be next to her.

They did not bother trying to communicate with each other; there was nothing to say. She focused on the rage-tainted power Wei was pouring out. It was being focused through what appeared to be a scroll made of golden light, but it defied simple classification. It shifted incomprehensibly, refusing to be recognized and she realized that her mind could not understand fully what she was perceiving. Its appearance as a scroll was simply her mind trying to make it more comprehensible for her. All she could tell for certain was that it was ancient beyond words to describe and it was used to transmit information between the worlds.

_And Wei wants to use it to destroy Japan._

Directed through the scroll, Wei's power beat rhythmically on the spiritual plane; a silent symphony in the night played to an almost deaf audience for the purpose of annihilating said audience.

The tempo was a unique signature for the summoned and spaces between the chords created an invitation and direction for it.

Although she was not aware of it, the air around Kagome began to hum and her form became impossible to discern as pinkish white light erupted from her like a star as she began to introduce counter notes into Wei's summoning symphony.

Overhead, the false starlight Wei had created began to flicker and the expanding scars across the dark canopy of the heavens slowed their ominous spread.

* * *

Wei came in hard and fast, striking at Sesshoumaru with such ferocity that even the surrounding cacophony of battle could do nothing to drown out the furious clash of their blades. Sesshoumaru took half a step back and then scythed the Tessaiga at Wei's left flank. Wei, spinning inside the arc of the cut, parried it wide with the Shining Hate. Unexpectedly, Sesshoumaru found himself staring at the back of Wei's head, but that lasted for only an instant before Wei continued the spin, pivoting on his right foot and smashing the heel of his left foot against Sesshoumaru's face.

Sesshoumaru staggered backward with blood gushing out of his broken nose, but managed to rip off a man sized chunk of the wall just as a red and gold geyser of flame erupted from the Shining Hate. Using the wall section as an improvised shield, Sesshoumaru rushed forward against the spewing inferno, slammed into Wei with it and knocked him down to the cobbled stones of the wall-walk with its weight. Without pause, Sesshoumau used his flight abilities to apply downward pressure, trapping Wei and the Shining Hate beneath him.

"Kagome tells me you are trying to summon something out of heaven," Sesshoumaru said as the cartilage in his nose began to knit itself back together; he saw no reason to divulge Daesung's role in learning this. "There is no way you could achieve that on your own. Who are you working with?"

"To tell you the truth, I didn't get his name," Wei responded while his lips twisted into a condescending smile and Sesshoumaru brought down the Tessaiga to decapitate him. "But for you it is hardly a matter of concern. You will never meet him."

There was the sudden sound of air filling an empty space and Sesshoumaru's instincts kicked in; he rolled to the side just in time to avoid a jet of flame. One of the Weis dressed in samurai armor had appeared behind him and was wielding the Shining Hate.

_How_ _did it move to that Wei? I know it was with this one._

Further time to consider the mystery was cut short as the Wei he had pinned down with the wall lashed out and grabbed the hand holding the Tessaiga and twisted brutally. Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth and bore the sudden pain in silence, but could not hold on to the Tessaiga and it slipped from his grasp just as the Shining Hate lined up perfectly to reduce Sesshoumaru to a cinder.

"I don't normally eat dog but for you I can make an exception," the two Weis said in unison.


	44. Kouga vs Wei: Round Two

Author's note: The last piece of fan art I commissioned is up on dokuga and on my deviantart page. I wanted to commission more because I had plenty more scenes to illustrate but I am paying for an MBA program so I have to be a bit thrifty. Perhaps after I finish my MBA program I will commission some more.

Chapter 46 Kouga versus Wei: Round Two

Initially ascendant over the forces of Wei, Kouga saw their forward drive stall before the second wall, as Wei, in all his incarnations, put up a hellish resistance to halt their advance. Wei's bodies were significantly less powerful than what Kouga had faced before, but they would not stay down. Ripping a head off meant very little when it would grow back after a few moments.

_This isn't as far in as I wanted, but we are running out of time so it will just have to do. _Kouga let out an ear splitting howl that dipped low and then rose in a specific pattern. W_e need to take that second line. Now._

Kouga was about to repeat the signal to bring in the second wave when he saw Sesshoumaru breaking off. Following Sesshoumaru's flight path to one of the upper levels, he immediately saw the strategic situation was about to shift against his pack as samurai attired Weis began to recapture the upper levels. Blood thundered in Kouga's veins as he saw Wei tear through his comrades with flames on one side and blades and spears on the other.

When Wei and Sesshoumaru engaged, Kouga froze for just a moment as their blades screamed against one another in a shower of sparks. The strength of their blows was enough to be audible across the entirety of the fortress even over the ferocious sound of battle.

As that Wei and Sesshoumaru raged against each other, Kouga spotted another one leap atop the wall-walk behind Sesshoumaru, just as he pulled a section of wall out to defend against the first Wei.

"The hell with that," Kouga said aloud and charged forward to assist Sesshoumaru. His progress was hindered by some of the lesser versions of Wei and he ended up on the wall just in time to hear Wei taunting Sesshoumaru and launching another fusillade of hungry flames at him.

As the flames leaped out at his ally, Kouga seized Wei's sword arm, crushing the armor encasing the bicep and ripped off the arm to send it flying into the night before Wei could do more than singe Sesshoumaru.

"I got this one," Kouga called out as he quickly flipped his Wei over and performed a pile driver off the wall-walk onto the ground below. Wei's head split open like a putrid crimson flower blossoming in a nightmare garden. Knowing that would not kill his opponent, Kouga grabbed Wei by the legs and spun him around and smashed him into and through the thick walls of the armory with a terrific crash.

A burst of pain exploded in Kouga's face as Wei's headless body used its remaining arm to deliver a solid right cross to his jaw. Kouga flung Wei to the opposite side of the room as the other arm, now reformed, started reaching for him.

"That was just blind luck you know," Wei said as he got up off the ground. His mouth apparently had no trouble working, even though the rest of his head was still regenerating. "I had no idea if I would hit you. Since I killed you earlier, the Tensaiga must be the reason you are here before me now. I am guessing Sesshoumaru must have felt you were worth the trouble to resurrect."

"Well congratulations you jackass," Kouga said, while rubbing his jaw and grabbing a shield off the wall. "But there are no prizes for winning guesses."

Wei laughed savagely. "How wrong you are. The prize is seeing this island and all its vile, treacherous, barbarous inhabitants eradicated."

"Let me tell you a secret Wei," Kouga said, as he feinted left and then spun around to bash his shield repeatedly into Wei's hateful face with a loud crunching sound. "There has only been one woman I've ever loved. I can't be with her, but I'd die if it would keep her safe."

Wei's bloody and mangled face smiled at Kouga hideously as he deflected one of the shield blows into a wall and delivered a knee to Kouga's stomach with sufficient force to nearly shatter his armor and break the wolf prince's ribs. Grabbing Kouga's hair, Wei twisted the youkai's face around and drove his thumb deep into Kouga's right eye, ruining it and causing Kouga to nearly pass out, as agony exploded from the socket.

"That is just so touching, I may just keep you alive so I can gang rape her in front of you." Wei sneered as he ripped out the eye with a soft sucking sound and a spray of red. "You won't need two eyes for that though."

Blood boiled in Kouga's veins and the pain exploding in his chest and face disappeared in an instant as rage filled him. Pistoning his arm forward faster than could be seen, Wei didn't even have time to react as Kouga's claws punched through his armored torso and seized hold of Wei's spine, twisting it and ripping out several vertebrae with a loud snap. Wei's legs consequently collapsed beneath him as the nerve signals failed to connect and he fell to his knees.

"I PROMISE YOU WEI," Kouga growled viciously, as he lifted Wei above his head and tore him in half in a shower of blood. "THAT SIMPLY ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN!"


	45. Inside Wei

Author's Note: If you see any spelling or grammar errors please let me know so I can edit. Especially let me know if you see the word "demon" being used instead of "youkai" anywhere in the story. I tried hard to remember to use "youkai" for accuracy but watching anime put the mistranslation in my head.

Chapter 46 Inside Wei

Although Kouga had cut in half the number of opponents Sesshoumaru had to deal with, the distraction provided by the second Wei was enough for the Wei pinned beneath him to escape. Free from Sesshoumaru using his flight abilities to exert pressure and crush the first Wei under a section of wall, that Wei had immediately extricated himself and began grappling with Sesshoumaru.

In fact, that Wei had actually managed to put Sesshoumaru in a headlock and was doing his absolute damnedest to break Sesshoumaru's neck. Worse, somehow being in such close and sustained contact with Wei's deathly aura was negating many of Sesshouamru's youkai abilities, forcing him to rely solely on his hand-to-hand combat skills.

"You brought this on yourselves," Wei snarled savagely into Sesshoumaru's ear. "You invaded our country, butchered us by the millions and turned our women into sex slaves for your soldiers. You cannot imagine **just how much we hate you.**"

"That is just fascinating Wei," Sesshoumaru grunted while trying to break out of Wei's vise-like grip. Sinking his hips back and then pushing on Wei's elbow with all the strength of his outside arm, Sesshoumaru created a hole large enough to draw out his head. "Now tell me how much you hate your government for all the Chinese they've murdered."

Sesshoumaru barely had time to bring the Toukijin up to guard as the Shining Hate _materialized _in Wei's hand and he brought it down in high slash.

"You seriously think the two are equivalent?" Wei demanded, seething as he dodged a strike from Sesshoumaru and made a slashing counter attack. "Say what you will about my government, but they united a fractured land, made us a nuclear power, and gave us back our self-respect after a century of humiliation."

"And at such a modest cost to the Chinese," Sesshoumaru mocked, as Wei tried to slice off his head. Ducking beneath the blow, he came up under Wei's guard and slammed the Toukijin into Wei's chest. For a moment, Wei looked confused and Sesshoumaru could swear he heard countless thousands of voices whispering horribly in the night, threatening him and promising exquisite death. The Toukijin vibrated uncontrollably in his hands and the battle raging around him seemed to fade into silence and shadow.

Inexplicably, Sesshoumaru found himself standing in an ocean of blood up to his knees. Above him the sky did not hold any sun, moon or stars. Instead, from horizon to horizon, scenes of Imperial Japanese soldiers attacking, looting, burning, stabbing, raping, mutilating and engaging in endless depravities stretched out like an insane series of stomach turning broadcasts.

In the scene directly in front of him, an infant in a crib screamed hideously as it was bayoneted by laughing soldiers. In another, a girl of no more than fourteen cried hysterically as three soldiers raped her in a house full of corpses. The sound of heavy gunfire erupted and Sesshoumaru turned and saw a scene in which a long line of thousands of Chinese were being mowed down by machine guns and falling into a trench already filled with rotting cadavers. The scenes swirled and shifted in a riot of sadistic violence and one that was completely surreal suddenly dominated the skyline.

It held a gargantuan tree whose bark was made of men, women and children whispering dark and incomprehensible threats at him. Sesshoumaru didn't know exactly how but looking at the monstrous roots of the tree he somehow intuited that the lake of pitch-black ichor they were sunk in and absorbing voraciously was somehow composed of grief, fury, hatred, and despair.

_What the hell is this?_

Sesshoumaru was so transfixed by what he was witnessing he did not register Wei rising up silently from the ocean of blood.

The spell was broken as Wei grabbed Sesshoumaru by the throat and held him aloft in a grip of iron. Faces beyond count began to break the crimson surface, their expressions contorted in rage and agony. A deafening roar filled Sessoumaru's ears, as they bayed their demands for vengeance.

"YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!" Wei thundered, as he forcibly plunged Sesshoumaru into the ghastly ocean like it was a horrific baptism. "GET OUT!"

Crimson liquid filled Sesshoumaru's lungs and then-

Incomprehensibly, Sesshoumaru snapped back to the reality of the life and death struggle he knew was happening all around him. The Toukijin, still planted firmly in Wei, was convulsing violently and red-hot fissures were traveling down the length of the blade to the pommel.

Sesshoumaru didn't know exactly what had just transpired, but he released the Toukijin and _shifted_ backwards just as his blade seemed to cry out in a keening wail and then explode in a cerulean flash of light. Sesshoumaru, taking advantage of the momentary distraction, retrieved the Tessiaga in a burst of speed from where it lay and took up a guard stance.

The Wei he had been fighting was still standing but, for the moment at least, was only gazing at him with complete revulsion. "The Toukijin is incapable of hurting me, as we were both born of the same emotions. Never once though did I imagine that it could serve as a bridge and allow you to touch me in that way. It is nauseating to think a Japanese would be able to do so."

"What was that? What are you exactly?" Sessoumaru asked, though he doubted he would get an answer that would satisfy him.

The revulsion in Wei's eyes morphed into naked hatred once more "I am all your sins come back to haunt you. I-"

Whatever else Wei was about to say came to an abrupt end as Kouga's second wave hit on the hinge of the second defensive line.


	46. Edge of Victory

Chapter 47 Edge of Victory

The final gambit had begun.

Although the frontal attack led by Kouga had its impetus absorbed and dissipated by the hellish and undying legions of Wei, it had served as a successful diversion allowing three hundred wolves under Akihiro to scale the mountainside unnoticed and descend again as an unstoppable juggernaut. The Weis that had been so tenaciously defending the second line and regaining lost ground crumbled under the unexpected flanking assault that no human army could have managed.

Inch by grudging inch, Wei was pushed back to just outside the keep itself and the already heavy fighting exploded into an indescribable blood soaked frenzy as wolves, refusing to accept any outcome other than victory, hammered Wei's last holdout.

Kagome, oblivious to all this, concentrated on countering Wei's attempts to breach heaven. Although she had slowed his summoning, she had not managed to stop it completely. Inexorably, the blinding wounds of light cutting across the night's dark veil continued to grow even if only at a crawl.

Initially Kagome thought she was successfully countering Wei; however, he had proven to be more creative than she expected. While he had made a pretense of being stymied, in fact he had created a second harmony that went unnoticed by her as she continued to focus on the first summoning harmonic. It was most subtle and only when Kagome realized that it couldn't possibly be this easy to check Wei did she realize she had been made a fool. The second one had been softer, but continued to gently carve away the layers of the heavens above and invite total devastation. Now both of them were engaged in a bizarre game of cat and mouse; each trying to determine where the other's true attention was focused and either inject discord or conduct a melody of oblivion.

At the very edges of Kagome's consciousness, something moved almost indistinguishably. It was an emptiness, an unnatural darkness that stood out almost imperceptibly in the spiritual landscape. Had her attention not been fully consumed by trying to stop Wei, she might have noticed it. As it was, the cold lifelessness did not even register.

* * *

Before the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, Wei had several Russian friends with whom he spent a great deal of time. Each of their countries had been invaded and their peoples made the victims of gruesome atrocities. It was only natural then that they could commiserate with the suffering of each other's people and for strong bonds of friendship to develop between them. The fact that Wei could speak Russian fluently meant that his company was particularly valued over his fellow Chinese. While Wei generally found the Russian company to be cynical and pessimistic, whenever chess was mentioned they could be counted on to liven up (especially if something like Kvass was on tap) and engage in spirited discussions on chess theory.

It is commonly accepted that in chess each player is allotted sixteen pieces with which to try and dominate the board. While many accepted this as common knowledge, because of his association with Russians, Wei was not entirely sure of its truth.

One of his friends, Arseny, had informed him that among chess experts it was contended that there were actually seventeen pieces, not sixteen; the seventeenth piece being the player. At first, Wei thought this was ludicrous, as the only pieces that counted were those on the board. Yet, as Arseny had argued, because something was not represented on the board did not mean it was not present. The player occupied the ultimate position, as he was the unpredictable force that could not be limited by the squares or by rules of movement. He was an unseen piece that could shift the board's balance of power in a single moment of brilliant maneuvering.

Wei did not count himself as an expert among chess players, but he did in fact have a last and perhaps desperate maneuver to shift the field of battle in his favor once more. The creature he had discovered earlier, what he thought of as his leviathan, had been traveling parallel to his main host. Although he had been sorely tempted to raze settlements with it, he instead had avoided them entirely so as to keep it a secret weapon in his arsenal.

He held the leviathan in reserve until now, partly because it had felt so alien but also because he knew it had to be deployed when the Japanese were at their limit and had nothing else to throw at him. As a secret weapon (and as was the case with all secret weapons) the earlier it was unleashed the less effective it was overall.

In short, timing was everything.

With his most powerful body occupied by Sesshoumaru and a flanking attack from Sesshoumaru's wolf allies crushing his last line of defense and about to break into the keep, Wei knew it was time to spring his own surprise.

_And to recapture that Kagome whore in the confusion, _Wei thought to himself.

"I want you to show me something Sesshoumaru," Wei said, as he sprang back. The unnatural light spilling down from overhead cast Wei's facial features in harsh square lines causing them to look like they were carved from the most unforgiving stone. "Before you die, before I murder your people, let me see your face as all hope ends."

Wei grinned madly and his eyes were like the shadowed caverns of hell. "This is what you get when you attack China."

Wei gestured to the front of the fortress. "**This is my Leviathan!**"


	47. Secret Weapons

Chapter 48 Secret Weapons

Lances of flame stabbed through Kouga with each breath he took and his empty eye socket was screaming at him, but he defied the pain and refused to sag against the wall of the armory as his body was begging him to do. Instead, he ripped off his ruined chest armor and exposed his naked flesh to the night and to battle.

The Wei he had fought did not bother to regenerate from being torn in half. The bloody mess of bone and entrails had dissolved into a pool of darkest red and flowed swiftly out of the armory and in the direction of the keep.

_Which means he is worried about losing it._

Kouga stepped out of the armory and spared a moment to take in the sight of the blasted landscape that surrounded him. The corpses of his tribe littered the ground by the dozen and the distinct coppery aroma of blood saturated the air.

_Have to end this before he-_

It was uncertain exactly what caused a sudden sense of dread to grip Kouga; perhaps it was subtle vibrations along the ground, maybe it was a shifting of the air currents. Whatever the reason, his attention was drawn to the front of the fortress just as a mammoth shadowed bulk did not so much slide down the mountainside as crash down it, landing with such force the ground shook beneath it.

For a moment, time seemed to slow and Kouga could only stare in total incomprehension as his mind refused to believe what he was seeing beneath the light of the twisted constellation Wei was carving into the sky. It was a disgusting amalgamation of youkai parts that that defied the very fabric of nature and looked as though it had been vomited up from the depths of hell. While it melded a slew of youkai together in an infernal blasphemy, it was predominately serpentine and all along its length insectoid legs and claws sprouted at irregular intervals. Erupting from the shimmering black scales on either side of its head, tentacles writhed obscenely around its maw as it sucked ceaselessly at the night air.

Kouga's skin crawled as its black scaled coils twisted and writhed in sordid serpentine grace and its monstrous head reared up high into the night sky, its scales flashing under the light from above and its ebon eyes gleamed with malice beyond words to describe.

A malice that Kouga knew he had seen reflected in the eyes of Wei.

_No...this isn't possible..._

It towered over the combatants and the buildings alike and, focusing on the army of youkai in front of the keep, opened its maw wide. For just a moment there was nothing but the darkness of the hungry abyss, then blinding radiance exploded outward as streams of blue-white lightning shot forth in a merciless arc of devastation. The wolf forces assaulting the keep virtually disintegrated as brilliant cascades of decimation cleaved through their ranks.

All cohesion was lost as they tried desperately to escape Wei's nightmarish power as it cut them down in droves, blasting apart their host and obliterating any hope of stopping him. Kouga felt the blackest dread taking root and flourishing in his heart as his comrades were cut to pieces by the impossible might Wei somehow managed to control.

"I got this one," a familiar voice said with unreal calmness from overhead. Kouga whipped his head around just as Sesshoumaru sliced through the air above him. A curve of darkness appeared in his hand, but a moment later it glimmered with light as the Tensaiga came to life in Sesshoumaru's hand.

Slashing it horizontally, Sesshoumaru released a violet wave of energy that rushed towards the keep and was stopped abruptly by Wei's wards. Just like before, the wards concentrated the power of Sesshoumaru's blade and reflected it out again in the opposite direction.

Something Sesshoumaru had counted on.

The violet wave washed over the battered and broken remnants of Kouga's forces refreshing them and mending the wounds of the living. Those wolves that were dead rose up once more and immediately entered into frantic battle as Wei tried to send them back to the grave.

As the violet light washed over Kouga, he felt a comforting warmth fill him and his ribs ceased their screaming. His eye socket burned furiously and he went momentarily blind, then his vision went from nonexistent, to blurry, to clear again with wolves nearby picking themselves off the ground.

"KOUGA," a voice shouted from behind him. It was Isamu and a slick of still wet blood coated his neck and stained his armor. Evidently Wei had slit his throat; other bloody and freshly risen wolves were right behind him.

"WHAT IS THAT?" He asked over the clamor of battle and gestured to the leviathan now turning its massive head to focus on Sesshoumaru.

"SOMEHOW ITS WEI," Kouga answered while wiping the blood away from his face. He gestured towards the keep "NEVER MIND THAT THOUGH...ALL OF YOU EXCEPT ISAMU, GET TO THE KEEP AND BREAK IT OPEN FROM THE REAR! NOW MOVE!"

Just as his troops charged past him to join the renewed fight at the keep, Kouga located Sesshoumaru in the sky above, dodging blazing spears of lightning. His heart nearly stopped though as he was forced to conclude his ally had gone completely insane.


	48. Full Throttle

Author's note: I'm not sure how many ethnically Chinese people are reading this but I hope Wei is convincing as a Chinese person. Discounting the being superhuman part at least.

Chapter 49 Full Throttle

"SESSHOUMARU!" Wei shouted with the voice of thousands, "LET'S END THIS!"

The leviathan's mouth opened to its fullest and a geyser of annihilating light meters wide tore across the sky towards Sesshoumaru, tracing his path across it, homing in on him with frightening speed. In a persistent nightmare from which he could not wake, Kouga watched as either insanity or a suicidal urge gripped Sesshoumaru.

He actually flew towards Wei's leviathan, twisting and turning through the air in an erratic path that tried to evade the focused beam of annihilation. Sesshoumaru's evasions were of extraordinary beauty and grace; virtually poetry in motion, but to Kouga's horror the deadly light eventually found him.

A titanic flash of white blinded all eyes for a moment, but the ears were deafened by a howl so loud the vibrations of its timbre could be felt in the bones and several buildings collapsed in response.

The dazzling white faded from Kouga's vision and his jaw dropped in shock.

* * *

In his transformed state, Sesshoumaru's perception drastically changed, the sounds of battle and the scent of blood were so much richer; almost sensual in their intensity. It made him heady and he had to fight to keep his mind from being overwhelmed by sensory input and letting base instinct decide his actions.

_Focus is everything. A disciplined mind does not succumb._

Ignoring the lightning Wei unleashed into his chest and which blasted away at his flesh, turning his pelt crimson, Sesshoumaru lunged forward and sank his glistening jaws deep into the hell serpent's neck. Its hide was like armor though and refused to yield easily beneath his fangs. Not bothering to try and bite through it, Sesshoumaru instead wrenched his head to one side and slammed its monstrous bulk against the side of the mountain. The impact was enough to cause an entire side of the mountain to shift and an avalanche to fall on both combatants as Sesshoumaru twisted the serpent's head back and redirected the lightning into the sky like a deadly beacon in the night.

Wei however, had only begun to fight; a moment later and Sesshoumaru felt the coils of the abomination try to encircle him like an eighty-ton anaconda. Sesshoumaru dug his claws into the leviathan's hide and, while maintaining his grasp on the neck, pushed back against the coils now constricting around him. Muscles bulged and strained visibly beneath his pelt as Sesshoumaru struggled against the unbelievable crushing force brought to bear against him.

Bit by bit though, the coils tightened around him, promising a slow but inevitable death in their unrelenting embrace.

Sesshoumaru considered his situation and possible escapes when he noticed a figure running up along the serpentine coils towards him. One dressed in samurai armor and holding a blade that was wreathed in flame.

_Wei..._

* * *

"What are you looking for?" Isamu asked while obeying Kouga's instructions to keep his torch just outside the room Kouga was in.

"I'll know it when I see it," Kouga answered as he searched frantically through the armory. _It's got to be in one of these chests or barrels. _

Prior to meeting Kagome, Kouga had not thought much of humans. They were prey and that was about it. However, with gentle but irresistible force, Kagome forced him to broaden his perspective. Now he viewed humans and by extension, their works with greater consideration. In some cases it even approached appreciation. One aspect in particular that struck him as both intriguing and confounding was the art humans called technology.

As was the case with most youkai, he understood little of technology. Youkai preferred what came naturally to them, whether it be claws, fangs, tendrils, illusions, or any other gifts from one's bloodlines. Technology seemed strange and unnatural to him, but it was clear humans used it to make up for their own frailty.

_And human skill for this stuff is making them increasingly more powerful. _

Rather than waste his time trying to stamp out human ingenuity, Kouga had begun to adopt certain practices they had, especially as it came to war. His conquests of other wolf tribes had not come through numbers and brute force alone, but by observing human armies and the ways in which they maneuvered. Watching their battles and learning the tactics they used, Kouga then trained his own tribe to emulate the military precision of human armies.

_Here it is,_ Kouga thought, as the smell of charcoal and sulfur filled his nostrils.

"I'm going to pass you one of these barrels, keep it the hell away from the torch if you want to stay in one piece," Kouga said, while rolling a barrel to Isamu and taking a barrel under each arm. "Let's see about giving Sesshoumaru a hand with that freak outside."

One human invention that Kouga had definitely come to respect was gunpowder.

* * *

Wei studied the defenses surrounding Kagome and ran through several scenarios for how to capture her with the least difficulty. Currently, her luminescent form was sitting a good distance away from the fortress on one of the curves of the mountain path. Arrayed around her in a protective ring were around thirty wolf youkai guarding against an attack, including the two he spared earlier.

Tearing through them in a straight forward attack would be doable but inefficient, especially seeing as such a course of action increased the chances of seeing her spirited away and he was already using the majority of his strength elsewhere. No, he needed an approach that would take full advantage of the element of surprise, neutralizing the youkai present and simultaneously incapacitate Kagome.

Sometimes extreme physical violence was simply not that answer. It was rare, but it did happen.

_I'll have to reapportion my power some, but as a side benefit, she may be thrown off balance by the sudden withdrawal._

Wei concentrated on the bodies he would use for this, reducing them to a single pool of blood and causing the clothes they were wearing to collapse in a heap. A moment later a carefully crafted body emerged. One which would be able to draw close to the youkai without raising an alarm. Grabbing the recently shed clothes, Wei used a knife to cut them more appropriately for the task he was going to have to carry out.

_ Despite your reluctance, you will assist me in rewriting history, Kagome._


	49. Wei's Deception

Chapter 50 Wei's Deception

_What the hell are you doing Wei?_

Confusion filled Kagome as the energy Wei was pouring into his summoning suddenly reduced itself to a trickle allowing Kagome to dominate the contest in which they were engaged. Reaching out to try and determine if Wei was deceiving her and somehow had managed to create yet another rhythm on which he was focusing his power, she sensed near stillness from him.

_Could Wei have been defeated?_

But no, the spiritual turbulence of a vicious life and death struggle still was still present and increasingly desperate. Expanding her consciousness outward, she strained to locate something; anything that would indicate what Wei was doing now. For her efforts all she got was the impression of was silence and nothingness.

_Nothingness..Silence..._

Intuition whispered to Kagome and she listened closely to the silence. He was subtle, but he was there, as difficult to detect as the space between words. A darkness that was just barely capable of being perceived as its tenebrous nature engulfed a darkness greater than what surrounded it.

_Where are you..._

_...Listen..._

"Kid, what are you doing here?" She heard Hakkaku ask. Shockwaves of unadulterated terror ripped through her mind as she sensed the cold lifeless presence of Wei practically next to her.

Jerking her eyes open and focusing once more on the physical world, she turned to her left and saw a lone child in ragged cut off pants just outside the ring of wolf youkai guarding her. He was sniffling and tears were raining down from his face onto the ground below.

Kagome locked eyes with the boy; his gaze was as bleak and pitiless as the icy void of space. She opened her mouth to cry out a warning, but it would never escape her throat.

The boy smiled cruelly at her as his tears turned to blood. "Saving my people."

The child version of Wei then exploded, drenching the youkai and Kagome with his nearly black blood. The force of the explosion itself was not the main thrust of the attack; any damage done by it was mild. Wei's unanticipated assault instead drove straight into the minds and spirits of his enemies. The youkai had no defenses to speak of and his psycho invasive strike penetrated deep into the pits of their souls where all their fears and self-deceptions lay dormant and awoke them. Countless razor shards of freezing black welled up inside them and tore through the walls of their subconscious rending asunder the conscious mind. As one they dropped catatonic to the ground. Kagome, however, did not surrender as easily to her inner demons.

To Kagome, Wei's attack was the vilest experience of her life. It felt as though he had just vomited on her soul and was trying to drown her in his spiritual bile. She struggled to push back against the viscous, crawling darkness Wei was inundating her with. At the moment she thought she had turned the ebon deluge aside, a sharp pain flared in her skull, like an icicle was being driven into her brain.

Wei had slipped past her defenses and his lifeless touch was upon her soul. Its empty chill spread through her, touching and profaning every fiber of her being. She tried to resist and ward him off but he submerged her into an arctic ocean of sheer nothingness.

Before she was lost to it completely, Kagome saw an image of the adult Wei in front of her, smearing her forehead with his blood.

* * *

Although he would never admit it to anyone else, Wei knew he had just barely overcome Kagome and only thanks to the element of surprise. The power he had in this body would not be enough to suppress her for long, as he could feel her struggling just beneath the surface of unconsciousness.

_On the plus side, I won't have her interfering with my summoning. That should give me enough time to end this. _

Adjusting the improvised shorts he wore by tugging on the drawstring, Wei picked up Kagome, being careful to not disturb the blood seal he had drawn on her forehead. He needed it to last long enough to get to the well. Wei's mahogany gaze shifted to the youkai lying on the ground, their eyes rolled up into their heads.

_Don't go anywhere; I'll want to visit with you all later._

Turning his back to the fortress and the youkai, Wei started bounding down the mountainside, always careful to make certain his captive stayed uninjured.

_Until such time as I don't need her anymore at least..._


	50. Leviathan Solution

Author's note: Fun fact: when I initially conceived of this story there were going to be tens of thousands of Wei rampaging throughout feudal Japan killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese and pissing off all Taiyoukai as he turned the entirety of Japan into a killzone. The time paradoxes for that would have been impossible to resolve so I scaled it back.

Chapter 51 Leviathan Solution

Kouga had underestimated the difficulty in climbing the serpent; it kept shifting underfoot as the coils tightened around Sesshoumaru. Luckily his and Isamu's agility and balance were up to the task of navigating the mess of limbs and other parts, which sprouted like branches from the hide of the youkai serpent.

_Also helps that Wei doesn't seem to know we're climbing up his monster's back._

Since Sesshoumaru was currently keeping the damned thing pinned against the side of the mountain and out of the fight, Kouga was also able to take advantage of the mountain's cliffs in certain areas and climb to within leaping distance of the back of the creature's head.

"Ok, here is how we are going to do this," Kouga said, as he made room for Isamu on the cliff face. "This stuff is what humans call gunpowder. If it catches fire it explodes. We are going to shove the barrels into that fucker's eye socket and let the torch do the rest."

"The plan and the goal are straightforward, but I doubt Wei will make it so easy."

Kouga smiled at Isamu. "It would be pretty boring if life was easy."

* * *

Trapped within the gargantuan coils of Wei's hell serpent and being brought ever closer to asphyxiation in their grasp, Sesshoumaru spared just enough concentration to track Wei as he vaulted over the coils, one after the other.

"Why hello Sesshoumaru," Wei called out in faux amiability as he landed on the apex of Sesshoumaru's shoulder, right behind the shoulder blade. "I hear the last time you transformed like this you lost an arm. I'll wager those were happier times, when you weren't facing the extinction of Japan."

Wei's deranged grin turned into a sadistic sneer; lifting the Shining Hate above his head and pointing its flaming edge straight down he continued, "Let's relieve those times together."

Sesshoumaru's shoulder shrieked in pain and he let out a strangled cry as Wei stabbed downwards and started sawing through his shoulder muscles gleefully.

A ribbon of Sesshoumaru's blood shot up and splashed over Wei's face, its psychic properties briefly linking the two combatants. Wei let go of the Shining Hate and stumbled backwards with a confused mixture of horror and revulsion written in his expression.

_"I TOLD YOU I DON'T WANT JAPANESE TOUCHING ME LIKE THAT," _Wei shouted dementedly. The Shining Hate disappeared and reappeared in Wei's hand as he aimed at Sesshoumaru's face. _"DON'T EVER TOUCH ME LIKE THAT!"_

Tongues of golden flame shot out and engulfed the right half of Sesshoumaru's face, filling the air with the scent of burning hair and charred meat.

_"YOU ARE NOT FIT TO TOUCH ONE OF US LIKE THAT!"_

The intensity of the flames would have made Hell's seem mild by comparison and they eagerly stripped off layers of Sesshoumaru's face. Abruptly the flames cut off and Sesshoumaru felt Wei running along his scarred face and heard several obscenities as Wei jumped onto his monster's neck and start climbing up towards the head. Baffled by the sudden reprieve, Sesshoumaru tracked Wei's line of ascent and saw him heading directly to its summit where a figure with barrels strapped to the back had managed to secure a spot near the eye.

It was then that Sesshoumaru caught a whiff of gunpowder.

_Kouga..._

* * *

The ebon eye tracked Kouga and Isamu as they approached and silently conveyed a promise of agony to them.

_Whatever Wei, it's time to put an end to this beast you dragged up from hell. _

Kouga dug his claws deep into the flesh surrounding the eye and, bracing his feet against the orbit of the eye, tried to lever the eye from the socket. It resisted initially and then gave way with a wet plopping sound. A fraction of a moment more and Kouga was lifting the quivering orb over his head, doing his best not to gag as a foul stream of fluid came gushing out over him.

"Disgusting," Isamu commented while holding his hand over his nose.

"Don't just stand there," Kouga said, while doing his best to not let any of the disgusting fluid into this mouth and throwing the eye over the side. It dangled by a red fleshy vein below them and swung slowly back and forth. "But you're right, smells like rotten blood."

Isamu's expression said he didn't want to draw any closer to the newly formed pit that Kouga was mired in, but knew he didn't have a say in the matter.

Putting the torch he carried between his teeth, Isamu undid the rope fastening the barrels to his back as Kouga did likewise. Rolling them into the now empty eye socket, Isamu turned around as he heard a scraping sound behind him and saw an armored figure spring up to join them. Wei swept a hand back through his black spiked hair and sent a spray of sweat out into the night.

"What was in those barrels you were carrying_?_" he grated out, while setting himself in a preparatory stance. From the look in Wei's eyes, Isamu believed he already guessed at the truth and thus held back his fire. _"_You shouldn't even need a torch under this light._"_

Kouga's response was direct as suited his nature and leaping out of the pit, swung the monster's eye by its fleshy pink nerve fibers like a gigantic ball and chain.

"FINISH IT DAMN YOU!" Kouga shouted at Isamu while releasing the improvised missile at Wei. "I'LL KEEP HIM OFF!"

Flying from his grasp, it flew unerringly at Wei, but was sliced neatly in twain by Wei's blade. That posed little problem for Kouga though as it had bought him the time to traverse the distance between himself and Wei in a blur of black and brown, tackling Wei and knocking him back into the cliff face of the mountain.

"Idiot," Wei sneered as he grappled with Kouga and smashed his face into the mountainside. "I don't have time for your shi-"

Whatever else Wei might have said was lost in a booming roar of thunder as an explosion blew apart the skull of his leviathan and showered them both with blood, bone and brain matter.


	51. A Philosophy of Blood

Chapter 52 A Philosophy of Blood

Wei had lost his leviathan. He didn't particularly care. While he would have preferred to keep it as a trophy, it had served its intended purpose: it had bought him the time to complete the summoning and provided the distraction he needed to kidnap Kagome.

He was however, more than fed up with these wolf youkai. Particularly the blue eyed one who had tackled him into the mountainside and was now twisting his arms behind his back and pulling upwards in an attempt to tear them out of their sockets.

"Kouga isn't it?" Wei asked nonchalantly, while simply dislocating his shoulders and rotating the arms around. "This body was made to take on Sesshoumaru and in fact killed you earlier, so don't think you can compete with me."

Delivering a swift elbow to Kouga's stomach, Wei knocked him back, swiftly reversed their positions now with Kouga pressed against the wall and his muscles screaming as his arms were forced into an unnatural position. "Don't count on Sesshoumaru resurrecting you a second time, he is next on my to do list."

Gore and a shaft of red stained bone suddenly burst from Wei's right eye socket as Isamu joined the fray. Using a shard of bone as a spear, he stabbed it through Wei's head and drove its point into the mountainside. "I know this won't kill you Wei, but I hope it hurts as you owe us all such a debt of pain."

"OWE YOU?" Wei shouted as Kouga used the distraction to break free from Wei's grip. "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF LIVING HELL YOU PUT US THROUGH AND YOU TALK ABOUT A DEBT OWED TO YOU?"

Wei ripped the spear from his head, causing chunks of the right top quarter of his skull to fly out. Although both Kouga and Isamu had witnessed Wei's regenerative abilities before, they still could not help but stare, as under the pulsing light from above, the chunks of flesh hung in the air for just a moment, before transforming into globules of blood and shooting back to rejoin Wei's head and make it whole once more.

The expression on Wei's face became unreadable and his voice softened, "You will never understand though, you didn't live through it. Only those of us who have suffered through Japan's imperial ambitions could ever hope to understand why I am doing this."

"Oh yes," Isamu bit out acidly. "Clearly raping and murdering your way through us is the only way to carry out justice."

Wei's eyes hardened to steel and the Shining Hate flashed back into his hand, "Do I look like I am interested in your concept of justice? Only the complete extermination of the Japanese will be payment enough for all the crimes they have committed against us."

"So for the crime of being born here," Kouga put in sarcastically, "we all need to die. Nope, not buying it."

"As I said," Wei replied evenly "You could never understand; only those who have been under the heel of Japan could."

Kouga narrowed his eyes at Wei. "Sesshoumaru told me that this 'Rape of Nanking' happened way before most in that future of yours were born. So I got to know, are all Chinese this whiny and just as dedicated to nursing their grudges as you are?"

Wei's response was so swift Kouga just barely saw it. In an eye blink the Shining Hate had pierced through Isamu's chest, and pinned him to the ground. Kouga found he could no longer breathe as Wei hoisted him aloft by the throat in a grip of iron.

He had just enough time to register this before Wei made a knife hand strike that penetrated into his left side. Mind crushing agony flooded through Kouga as Wei dug deeply into him.

"Does it hurt?" Wei asked, his voice filled with venom. "This is nothing compared to what you did to us. This pain multiplied by one hundred thousand doesn't even come close. Don't think you are fit to judge me. YOU. ARE. NOT."

As Wei reached deeper into him, Kouga did his best not to scream. Just as the searing pain reached a crescendo and forced a cry from his throat, he saw a whip like line of light wrap around Wei's throat and constrict tightly against it.


	52. Wei Triumphant

Chapter 53 Wei Triumphant

The world blurred into streaks of light and dark as Kouga felt himself and Wei jerked harshly back over to the shattered carcass of the hell serpent. The landing was just as bad as Wei's hand piercing inside of him and caused the world to blink out of existence for a moment behind a black veil of pain.

_No damnit...not going to give in..._

The seductive darkness and its promise of peace in oblivion grudgingly withdrew and rising up, he had just enough time to witness a badly scarred Sesshoumaru use his light whip to swing Wei into the beast's scaly hide. Before anyone could react, Sesshoumaru sank his teeth into the meaty part of his palm, causing blood to well up._ Shifting _backwards to Kouga, he clapped the bloody hand against Kouga's forehead.

_I wouldn't normally do this Kouga, but we have almost no time left and this is the fastest method. When Wei tried to cut off my arm earlier, he came into contact with my blood and I finally saw and understood what he is._

_Your blood? What?_

_It can forge bonds, but never mind that, this is the future..._

_A storm of images swept through Kouga's mind like the winds of a hurricane. Iron boxes on endless treads belching smoke and flame, metal birds in the sky disgorging eggs that exploded on impact, corpses by the thousands littering the streets of an unknown city, fires raging and children and infants screaming, terror filling the air. It was a world gone mad and consumed in a war stretching from horizon to horizon... _

_Those are some of Wei's memories, or more accurately, those are memories of people who fought and died at Nanking. The final truth of Wei is that he isn't a single individual or even really alive, he is a fusion of all the murdered souls of Nanking; all their hatred, all their rage, all their sorrow and agony, all of it melded into one completely psychotic entity._

_Wei __**is**__ Nanking._

_All these bodies that we are fighting, they are just manifestations and extensions of an undying hate personified. _

_Kouga began to form a question, but even before it was fully fleshed out in his mind Sesshoumaru was answering._

_He can be destroyed but we need to stop him here first, which requires us to keep this body, his strongest body, occupied or it will return to the keep and cut down your army like a scythe through wheat... _

Contact was cut off suddenly and the vision of the future world disappeared from his mind and was replaced by an enraged Wei smashing his blade down onto Sesshoumaru's in an assault so violent, Kouga thought the Tessaiga might break beneath it.

" Wei," Sesshoumaru rasped. Half his face and head was a mass of burn scars and melted flesh. His lips looked like they were having trouble parting to pronounce words. "I know what you are, when you stabbed me you let me see your true nature. The dead have no place among the living."

"Like you can speak credibly," Wei returned, while parrying a return strike. "By the way, I love what you've done with your face; very rugged looking."

"It'll get better," Sesshoumaru responded mixing equal parts condescension and certainty. "You, however, won't."

Wei withdrew a few paces and offered them a smile that gleamed coldly in the pulsating light from above. "Just like a Japanese to possess such unwarranted self-confidence. This body fought you to a standstill and it houses only half my power. How would you fare against seventy percent of me?"

"I know we're ready to find out," Kouga said, breathing hard and steeling himself.

Ignoring the protests of the wound spurting blood from his side, Kouga rose up to set himself for battle once more, but paused midway when he felt something wet and sticky flow between his toes and swiftly by him; glancing behind he saw a dark river bubbling up from the shattered skull of Wei's leviathan, streaming past him and Sesshoumaru to be absorbed into Wei.

"Do you honestly believe two battered, bleeding and burned youkai are a match for a reckoning decades in the making? Even if you were a match, it wouldn't matter. You're too late," Wei said, as the Shining Hate disappeared from his hand. A deep and resonating thrum sounded from everywhere and nowhere, audible and yet silent.

"DO YOU HEAR ME SESSHOUMARU!" Wei's face nearly split apart as his sick smile blossomed on it. "YOU'RE TOO LATE! TIME IS UP! IT'S THE END FOR JAPAN! HEAVEN'S WRATH IS ABOUT TO WIPE IT OUT! YOUR PEOPLE WILL NEVER THREATEN MINE!"

The night sky, disfigured by the albescent scars of Wei's power, suddenly shattered into shards of darkness that were immediately drawn upwards into a maw of merciless light, which devoured them totally and consumed the world around them. Heaven had heard Wei's cry and the gate was now open.


	53. In the Dragon's Court

Chapter 54 In the Dragon's Court

Above them, the heavens split open like a curtain being spread wide and brilliance of impossible intensity flooded out, forcing Sesshoumaru to shield his eyes with his hand. In a way that he could not describe, Sesshoumaru felt reality flex, as though it was sagging under some impossible weight. The atmosphere became heavier and his breathing became labored, each breath an effort for his lungs.

His senses became meaningless, his vision was nothing but blinding light; either there was nothing to hear or he was now deaf, he floated in nothingness and he could not even catch his own scent. The world had dropped away and he was but a mote of dust on the floor of eternity. Insignificant and powerless, he had never felt so vulnerable, as though he were naked and standing ready for a judgment of an inconceivable magnitude.

A presence entered into his awareness. It was titanic, immeasurable on any scale; cosmic would be the only word he could think of to describe it. Sesshouamru knew then the depths of Wei's insanity for daring to draw the attention of whatever it was that he had called on; it was not a dragon. That term was something used by humans to try define the indefinable. It was beyond any mortal's comprehension and Wei was tampering with forces he couldn't possibly understand.

A voice of such power that volume did not matter spoke.

"YOU WHO HOLD THE SEAL OF HEAVEN, YOU HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO SUMMON ME."

The voice paused.

"YOU ARE NOT A GOD THOUGH, AND THUS, CANNOT COMMAND."

Sesshoumaru detected a tremble in Wei's voice as he began to realize how far out of his league he was. He was Wei though, and would not stop for anything.

"THEN I WILL BEG! THE JAPANESE HAVE WRONGED OUR PEOPLE, COMMITTED INNUMERABLE CRIMES. THE DEPTHS OF THEIR SINS KNOW NO LIMIT! I BESEECH YOU, HELP OUR PEOPLE CLAIM VENGEANCE, DESTROY THEIR ISLAND. REMOVE THEIR TAINT FROM THE WORLD."

For a moment, the blackest and most terrible horror filled Sesshoumaru's heart as he _felt _the entity consider Wei's request. Then, there was something like a resigned sigh.

"YOUR MIND REVEALS ALL THE JAPANESE HAVE DONE, IT HAS HAPPENED, IT IS HAPPENING, IT WILL HAPPEN. TO DO AS YOU REQUEST WOULD HAVE CONSEQUENCES MORE SEVERE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. TIME IS A KEYSTONE IN REALITY. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JAPANESE, THE ALTERATION OF HISTORY, WOULD PULL OUT THAT KEYSTONE AND ALL THAT IS WOULD COLLAPSE INTO THE COSMIC ABYSS THAT SURROUNDS US. CHINA, JAPAN, THE ENTIRE EARTH AND REALITY ITSELF WOULD CEASE TO EXIST."

"YOUR TRAVELS THROUGH TIME ARE MORE PERILOUS THAN YOU CAN CONCEIVE AND YOU ENDANGER MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE."

There was a pause, and a sensation of the universe measuring Wei; weighing him, dissecting him, examining him with such an intensity that the terror it sparked in Wei could be _felt _across the nothingness and the everything surrounding them.

" I WILL RELIEVE YOU OF THAT SEAL. I CANNOT FATHOM WHY IT WOULD BE DELIVERED TO YOU, BUT IT DOES NOT BELONG IN MORTAL HANDS."

The voice took on a softer, more paternalistic tone.

"WEI, IF YOU TRULY LOVE YOUR COUNTRY AND YOUR PEOPLE, YOU MUST RETURN TO YOUR OWN TIME. NOW GO."

Sesshoumaru felt something like a gale force wind catch them all in its grasp, or perhaps he was in the palm of the entity Wei had summoned. Whichever the case, he felt himself accelerating towards a dark orb in the distance. An instant passed and it was no longer a dark orb, it was the tear in the sky created by Wei's summoning and seen from the opposite side. He could see the tiny tops of the buildings growing larger by the second. An instant more and Sesshoumaru felt as though he had been shoved through a door or barrier of some sort.

His awareness blurred and he saw Kouga's face with impossible relief written on it, then he saw Wei staring at him with dead eyes and a stony countenance. His enemy's face split apart in crimson streams and then...there was nothing.


	54. Wei on the Run

Chapter 55 Wei on the Run

Uncertain how it came to be, Sesshoumaru found himself lying face down on the hide of the leviathan Wei had commanded.

Rolling, he brought up the Tessaiga to defend against any incoming attacks from Wei. None were forthcoming though; an eerie quiet had fallen on them all. The fortress was silent save for the sound of Kouga's soldiers trying to regain themselves. Rising up, Sesshoumaru spotted the samurai armor Wei had been using. It lay empty on the ground, like a discarded shell.

"Where is Wei?" Kouga asked, he sounded as disoriented as Sesshoumaru felt.

"I'm not su..." Sesshoumaru stopped mid-word as the frightening answer hit him and Kouga simultaneously: Wei had to return to the future if he intended to ensure China's continued existence.

"Kagome," they both whispered at the same time.

* * *

Moving through Japan's country like a blur in the moonlight, Wei struggled to take in the utter failure of his plans and dreams. The futility of his journey, the impossibility of saving his people from the Japanese, the pointlessness of his struggles. It was as though fate was mocking him.

_I've been on a fool's errand all this time _Wei reflected furiously.

Had his patron known all along this would happen? The foreigner certainly had an agenda of his own and for his own reasons had facilitated Wei's travel to Japan and the feudal era. Wei hadn't cared particularly about it at the time, as their interests had seemingly aligned with the destruction of Japan. Now though, he would demand answers. There would be an accounting for this; he would not tolerate being sent on a futile chase for an unobtainable goal.

_This outcome was preordained. I cannot rewrite history without endangering China._

The knowledge that he nearly destroyed his own homeland made the blood race through his veins like cold torrents of black fear.

His captive, Kagome, trapped though she was in nightmare, must have sensed his agitation. He could feel the walls of her prison begin to crumble as her will strained against them, chipping away at them relentlessly. This was not terribly surprising considering her spiritual power, but the body carrying her would be hard pressed to restrain her - and indeed the possibility of doing so seemed remote- if she awoke before they arrived at the well.

_Still, it is possible to achieve a sort of personal of victory._

As soon as he learned that tampering with time would destroy reality and thus China, Wei had broken all his bodies at the fortress and immediately sent that power to join the body carrying Kagome where he re-centered his consciousness.

That body already had a significant head start in heading for the well and the rest of him was rushing along like a river to join it with additional power.

Kagome stirred once more and her eyes fluttered open for just a moment. Wei tried to contain her, but knew it would be impossible for much longer.

_Sleep just a little bit longer. When we are safely on the other side, then you can awaken to the nightmare of having the living hell raped out of you._

* * *

The scent of Wei's blood was distinct from all humans. While it had a metallic scent like that of copper, permeating that scent was also an undertone like ozone. It was sharp and made the nerves feel like electricity was arcing across them.

In his transformed state, it was so intense it pushed Sesshoumaru's predator instincts into overdrive. Hunger for blood intertwined beautifully with the desire for vengeance granting him a superb focus.

_This is the second time you have taken from me what is mine, Wei. _

On some level he wanted to blame Kouga for Kagome's capture, but Sesshoumaru knew that was irrational and he was above such pointless hysterics.

_With thirty wolves guarding her, and Wei focused on defending himself, she should have been safe. _

Seeing the wolves lying catatonic on the ground with their eyes rolled into their heads, the yawning space between them all where Kagome had been, Sesshoumaru immediately had transformed to track Wei and give chase. He had heard Kouga shout some orders for the wounded and then Sesshoumaru felt a sudden weight attach itself to his mane. Looking back, Sesshoumaru had seen Kouga grab hold of his bloodied mane and locked his amber eyes with the wolf prince's icy blue ones.

Words were unnecessary. An alliance of convenience had been strengthened by blood and battle into something more.

_We're coming for you, Wei._

Kagome's safety, ironically, was guaranteed by Wei. He needed her to travel through time back to the modern era. For as long as it took to get to the well, Wei would keep her alive.

_He also needs to collect the rest of himself before going through the well._

Ahead of them, Sesshoumaru could see the tail end of the dark ribbon comprising Wei's essence, as it gleamed in the moonlight. Like a shadow given substance and life, it went raging through the countryside, blasting through anything in its way as it took a direct path back to the well. Approaching a forest, the liquid shadow plunged in and Sesshoumaru heard the sounds of timbers breaking, as the violent deluge slashed through it not even slowed by the arboreal obstacles.

Ignoring the pain of his throbbing shoulder and the bite of the wind on his wounded face, Sesshoumaru put on a burst of speed and closed the distance to just behind the dark flood racing across the land.

_Where is the one with Kagome...?_

Sesshoumaru didn't entirely discount the possibility that he was being diverted away from Kagome, but strategically it wouldn't have made much sense. A large portion of Wei was taking a straight line back to the well where all of him would need to meet with Kagome in tow if he didn't want to threaten China's existence.

Although Sesshoumaru could not claim to understand completely the mind of Wei, he did know that Wei was devoted to his homeland and would not risk a delay in returning for any reason if it was under threat from his actions.

The faintest scent of Kagome came to Sesshoumaru and he felt Kouga tense on his back as her scent reached him as well. In other circumstances, Sesshoumaru would have felt a sense of relief knowing he was gaining on her, but he could also see the clearing around the bone eaters well in the distance now. Judging by the speed of approach, the well would be reached simultaneously with Wei.


End file.
